43877 


[See  p.  6 


"THE  GIRL  STARTED  TO  HER  FEET" 


Judgment 

A  Novel  by 

Alice  Brown 

Illustrated  by  IV.  T.  Smedley 


New  York  and  London 

Harper  &  Brothers  Publishers 

1903 


Copyright,  1903,  by  HARPER  &   BROTHERS. 

All  rights  reserved. 

Published  September,  1903. 


Jg 

/W 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


"THE  GIRL  STARTED  TO  HER  FEET".     .     Frontispiece 
"'NOW,'   SAID   SHE,  'LET'S  TALK  ABOUT 

KENT!'"    ..........  Facing  p.    32 

"THEY  WERE  LOOKING  DOWN  INTO  THE 

VOID  BELOW  THEM"  ......       "        94 

"ROSAMOND  BLURRED  THROUGH  SNATCHES 

OF  ENGLISH  BALLADS  "    .....  IO4 


HAM'"  ...........          "          ISO 

"THEN  THEY  WERE  SILENT"     ....       "      170 


JUDGMENT 


JUDGMENT 


i 


THE  house  John  Markham  had  built 
for  himself,  out  of  his  manufacturing 
business,  stood  near  the  park,  fronting  an 
avenue  of  trees.  A  vacant  lot  on  either 
side  had  been  sown  down  to  make  a 
breadth  of  lawn,  and  the  river  was  at  the 
back.  No  other  city  house  had  such  big 
breathing-space.  It  signified  a  bewilder 
ing  sum  of  money  in  the  real  estate  it 
had  absorbed;  but  in  itself  it  was  only 
a  square,  solid  structure  filled  with  com 
forts  of  the  simpler  sort.  There  was  the 
plainest  furnishing  consistent  with  width 
of  wall  and  height  of  ceiling.  The  rooms 
had  no  paucity  of  convenience;  yet  at 

i 


JUDGMENT 

every  point  they  told  the  story  of  people 
who  lived  plainly.  The  one  telltale  lux 
ury  about  the  place  lay  in  the  adornment 
given  by  natural  beauties ;  for  there  were 
flowers  in  profusion,  and  open  fires  burned 
in  every  room. 

This  snowy  evening  of  the  early  spring 
Mrs.  Markham  sat  in  the  library  be 
tween  lamp  and  fire,  as  if  she  craved 
the  fellowship  of  both.  She  was  a  slen 
der  woman,  in  a  white  dress.  Her  face 
wore  a  natural  pallor,  and  her  move 
ments  had  a  rhythm.  "Her  body 
thought;"  it  seemed  to  be  the  instru 
ment  of  a  spirit  so  keen  as  to  demand 
continuous  expression.  Her  pure  pro 
file  had  an  aspiring  look,  half  mystical, 
half  loving;  her  gray  eyes  were  deeply 
set,  and  the  black  hair  above  was  brush 
ed  back  in  a  loose  abundance.  She  was 
waiting.  When  the  clock  struck  the  quar 
ter-hour  she  turned  to  it  in  quick  im 
patience,  though  she  knew  it  was  no 

2 


JUDGMENT 

later.  Then  the  lower  door  opened  to  a 
latch-key,  and  she  rose  with  an  expect 
ant  grace,  trembling  yet  controlled.  A 
step  ran  up  the  stair,  and  a  young  wom 
an  appeared  in  the  doorway.  She  was 
dark,  with  the  poise  of  Diana,  and  her 
clothes,  in  their  commonplace  cut,  flouted 
her  beauty.  Mrs.  Markham  put  out  both 
her  hands. 

"Come  here,  child,"  she  called,  in  her 
soft  contralto.  "Come  here,  Elizabeth." 

The  girl  walked  up  to  her  step-mother, 
and  stood  there,  smiling  and  pulling  off 
her  gloves.  She  was  not  a  creature  of 
outspoken  greetings  ;  but  her  face,  full 
of  an  almost  brooding  interest  in  the 
woman,  made  up  for  silence. 

"  What  is  it,  Helen?"  she  asked.  "  What 
made  you  send?  The  settlement  is  quite 
agog,  your  messenger  was  so  urgent." 

She  had  tossed  off  her  jacket  and 
drawn  up  another  chair,  a  straight  one. 
There  she  seated  herself  and  waited,  her 

3 


JUDGMENT 

hands  on  her  knees.  Her  brows  drew  to 
gether  in  a  watchful  intensity.  She  look 
ed  like  a  doctor  prepared'  to  pass  sentence 
on  a  case.  Mrs.  Markham  had  awakened 
to  the  alertness  of  a  person  who  has 
something  to  tell.  Her  face  warmed  rather 
with  expression  than  with  color. 

"  I  must  let  you  understand  the  situa 
tion  first,"  she  said.  "Your  father  is  in 
the  West,  fighting  out  the  strike." 

"Yes.  He  hasn't  yielded.  That  was 
on  the  bulletins  when  I  came  by." 

'  Your  brother  is  on  his  way  home.     He 
sailed  from  Cape  Colony  on  the  ninth." 

The  girl  drew  her  brows  together  and 
narrowed  her  gaze.  She  was  puzzled. 

"Yes,  dear,  yes,"  she  answered.  "But 
why  do  you  remind  me  of  things  I  know? 
What  makes  you  so  queer  about  it? 
Why  do  you  say  'your  brother,'  and  not 
just '  Kent'  ?  What's  the  matter,  Helen  ?" 

Mrs.  Markham  sat  straighter  and  held 
the  arms  of  her  chair,  as  if  to  steady 

4 


JUDGMENT 

herself.  "  I  want  you  to  realize  just  how 
we  are  placed." 

" Placed,  Helen?" 

But  Helen  did  not  listen.  Her  words 
had  a  despairing  thrill. 

"And  your  brother  is  engaged  to  Rosa 
mond  March." 

Elizabeth  leaned  forward  and  laid  a 
hand  on  her  step  -  mother's  knee.  She 
spoke  gently,  as  we  reassure  the  sick. 

"Yes,  Helen,  yes.     What  then?" 

Mrs.  Markham  looked  at  her  for  a 
moment  from  a  still  face  where  reflec 
tion  seemed  to  be  moving  below  the 
surface. 

"Do  you  remember  Jane  Harding?" 
she  asked. 

"  She  was  the  seamstress  we  hired  by 
the  day  when  things  were  going  so  bad 
ly  with  us?" 

"Yes.  Later  she  had  a  little  class 
down  at  Woodside." 

"  An  old-maidish  sort  of  woman — spin- 

5 


JUDGMENT 

ster  to  the  bone.      She  had  one  daugh 
ter." 

"Yes." 

"  Big,  blowsy  thing,  pretty  as  a  tulip, 
and  vain!  My  stars!  wasn't  she  vain? 
She  stole  my  doll's  best  dress  and  bunch 
ed  it  up  into  a  necktie." 

"Jane  Harding  came  to  see  me  on 
Tuesday.  She  says"-— her  voice  paused 
upon  an  eloquent  note,  but  she  went  on 
quietly-  "her  daughter  went  to  the  bad. 
That  was  the  way  she  put  it." 

"Did  Linda  marry?" 

"No.  She  died  unmarried.  But  the 
man "  —again  she  halted,  and  the  girl 
looked  at  her  with  a  candid  interest— 
"the  one  this  woman  accuses — the  man 
was — Kent." 

The  girl  started  to  her  feet.  "Kent!" 
she  repeated.  "Kent!  Helen,  how  can 
you?" 

"  It  is  true.     I  am  convinced  of  it." 

"Give  me  your  proofs.'    Helen,   I  am 
6 


JUDGMENT 

ashamed  of  you!  I  can't  forgive  you. 
Don't  expect  it  of  me — ever." 

Mrs.  Markham  took  no  notice  of  the 
outburst.  It  was  a  part  of  the  difficult 
situation,  and  she  overrode  it  as  if  it 
were  a  wave.  "  Mrs.  Harding  brought 
me  letters,"  she  said.  "They  were  from 
Kent  —  some  to  her,  some  to  the  girl. 
She  read  me  parts  of  them.  It  is  all 
true." 

Elizabeth  seated  herself  with  determi 
nation,  like  one  recalled  to  an  habitual 
attitude  of  mind.  Her  face  took  on  the 
concentrated  look  it  wore  when  she  was 
thinking  over  her  settlement  work.  In 
that  moment  she  had  decided  that  nei 
ther  the  grief  nor  wrong  of  this  calamity 
should  touch  her  at  the  core.  She  made 
it  a  point  of  honor  not  to  wince.  This 
was  no  worse  for  her  than  for  girls  more 
used  to  shame. 

11 1  am  willing  to  assume  you  are 
right,"  she  said,  coldly.  "  For  the  sake 

7 


JUDGMENT 

of  finding  out  the  next  step,  nothing 
more.  They  want  money,  do  they?" 

"Yes.  She  —  Jane  Harding  —  wants  a 
sum  of  money." 

"If  it  were  true,  they  should  have  it. 
Helen"— her  voice  quivered,  and,  forget 
ting  her  denial,  she  ended,  passionately — 
"  they  must  have  it.  But  I  forget.  Linda 
is  not  living." 

"No." 

"Then  Jane  Harding  wants  money  for 
herself.  Is  that  it?" 

"That  is  it.  She  wants  money,  and 
she  intends  to  get  it  —  hideously.  She 
has  a  package  of  Kent's  letters.  She 
proposes  to  sell  them  to  us." 

"Blackmail!" 

Helen  nodded.  Her  face  had  a  dry 
anguish,  disproportioned,  Elizabeth  took 
time  to  consider,  to  this  stage  of  the  game. 
The  tragedy  of  it,  she  thought,  lay  in 
what  was  done  and  over;  there  was  noth 
ing  in  this  present  phase  to  evoke  more 
8 


JUDGMENT 

than  what  she  herself  felt — a  nauseating 
distaste  for  the  dead  body  of  past  sin. 

"It  is  very  easy  to  deal  with  a  case 
like  that,"  she  said,  coldly,  out  of  her 
hatred  for  the  savor  of  it.  This  seemed 
quite  unlike  the  same  thing  which  made 
the  commonplace  of  life  in  tabulated 
reports.  "  We  need  a  lawyer." 

"  We  can't  deal  with  this  in  any  ordi 
nary  way,  Elizabeth.  If  we  anger  her, 
she  will  use  the  letters." 

"What  does  she  propose  doing  with 
them?" 

"She  will  tell  Rosamond  the  story. 
The  letters  are  her  proof." 

The  girl  gave  a  little  cry,  full  of  wounded 
love.  She  lifted  her  head  proudly.  "  It 
won't  hurt  Rosamond,"  she  said.  "Rosa 
mond  knows  it  already.  Kent  would  never 
have  entered  into  an  engagement  to  marry 
Rosamond  without  telling  her." 

"That  is  just  the  point.  He  didn't 
tell  her." 


JUDGMENT 

The  girl  started  up  from  her  chair. 
Then  she  seated  herself,  with  a  wilful 
calm.  "  Don't  expect  me  to  believe  a 
thing  like  that,  Helen,"  she  returned. 
"I  won't,  I  can't,  even  from  you." 

"  Listen,"  said  the  older  woman,  gently. 
1  'The  night  Rosamond  promised  to  marry 
him,  Kent  came  in  here  within  an  hour 
after  he  left  her,  and  talked  to  me.  Kent 
was  very  happy  that  night.  He  told  me 
Rosamond  had  accepted  him.  Then  he 
stopped  and  pondered.  His  face  got 
seamy,  as  it  does  when  he  sits  by  the  fire 
and  fancies  nobody  is  looking.  Finally 
he  said  to  me  that  there  was  something 
Rosamond  ought  to  know.  I  remember 
his  words:  'But  she  won't  let  me  tell  her. 
I'm  afraid  that's  a  mistake,  mother.  It's 
a  mistake.' ' 

"What  did  you  say?" 

"  I  asked  if  what  he  meant  was  past  and 
gone.  He  said,  'Yes.'  I  asked  him  if 
any  one  had  a  right  to  trouble  her,  and 
10 


JUDGMENT 

he  said,  '  No  right  —  but  there  might  be 
ghosts.'  I  said,  '  Well,  Rosamond  is  chief 
ly  spirit.  She  won't  be  afraid  of  ghosts.' 
We  both  laughed,  and  I  believe  we  cried 
a  little.  I'm  sure  I  did." 

"  Was  that  the  end  of  it?" 

"  No.  We  talked  more.  I  took  his  two 
hands  in  mine  as  I  used  to  do  when  he  was 
little  and  had  got  into  scrapes.  'Kent,' 
I  said,  'have  you  done  wrong?'  'Yes,' 
said  he.  I  asked  him  if  he  had  tried  to 
make  it  right.  He  held  up  his  dear  head 
and  looked  me  in  the  eyes.  '  Yes,  mother/ 
said  he,  'honest,  I  have.  Some  things 
can't  be  righted,  but  I've  done  all  I  could.' 
I  asked  him  if  Rosamond  were  innocent 
ly  crowding  out  somebody  who  ought  to 
have  her  place.  He  winced  then,  but 
he  said,  'No.  There  is  nobody.  She  is 
dead.'" 

"So  you  advised  him  not  to  tell?" 

"Not  that,  Elizabeth.  I  simply 
couldn't  advise  him  at  all.  I  had  the 
ii 


JUDGMENT 

same  feeling  about  Rosamond  that  he 
had  brought  away  with  him.  I  felt  her 
girl's  passion  for  him,  her  untouched 
faith,  her  wanting  to  take  him  as  he  was, 
home  from  the  wars  of  youth,  with  scars 
on  him,  but  a  creature  to  be  adored, 
trusted — oh,  it  didn't  seem  well  to  resur 
rect  wrong,  tawdry  things,  and  paste  them 
over  a  picture  such  as  that!" 

She  rose,  a  different  creature,  fired  by 
passion,  and  stood  there  trembling,  her 
nostrils  big  with  life. 

"  So  somebody  else  is  going  to  tell  her," 
said  Elizabeth,  practically,  "if  we  don't 
pay  down  money.  Frankly,  Helen,  I 
should  pay  the  money.  How  much  does 
she  want?" 

"Ten  thousand  dollars." 

"  Heavens!  Well,  I  should  temporize.  I 
should  play  the  woman.  Give  her  some 
thing,  and  ward  her  off  till  Kent  comes 
home.  Then  he  will  tell  Rosamond  him 
self.  But  I  should  do  anything  to  save 
12 


JUDGMENT 

Rosamond  from  this  brutal  shock,  espe 
cially  now  when  her  mother  is  ill.  She 
can't  afford  the  strain." 

"  Ah,  but  that's  it.  The  woman  is  clev 
er.  She  won't  be  played  with.  She  de 
mands  the  whole.  Right  or  wrong,  Bess, 
I  think  I  should  give  it  to  her  —  but  I 
haven't  it.  I've  no  money." 

The  girl  cast  her  a  swift  look,  as  if  she 
were  ashamed. 

"It's  abominable,"  she  cried,  "to  live 
in  the  midst  of  this  and  have  no  money!" 

Her  step-mother  threw  out  her  hands  in 
passionate  deprecation. 

"  I  have  never  wanted  money  of  my 
own,"  she  said,  hotly.  "I  prefer  to  have 
your  father  give  it  to  me.  It  is  a  part  of 
the  fun  we  have,  your  father  and  I,  for  me 
to  pick  his  pockets,  as  if  he  were  a  work 
ing-man.  It  makes  him  realize  his  wealth, 
his  power.  He  likes  it,  and  so  do  I." 

She  was  flushed,  trembling  like  a  girl. 
Elizabeth  looked  at  her  and  smiled  with 

I3 


JUDGMENT 

reminiscent  tenderness  which  seemed  to 
spring  from  long  devotion. 

"You're  a  goose  over  father,  dear," 
said  she.  "  Well,  he's  a  goose  over  you. 
But  you've  only  to  ask  him  for  money. 
Have  you  asked?" 

Helen's  face  took  on  the  lines  of  baffled 
will.  Some  hurt  also  was  there. 

"I  wrote  him  at  once,"  she  said,  in  a 
low  tone.  "  I  told  him  everything.  He 
telegraphed.  Here  is  the  message."  She 
took  a  crumpled  paper  from  the  little  bag 
at  her  side. 

Elizabeth  read  it  with  a  frowning  brow. 

" '  He  must  take  the  consequences  of  his 
own  acts.'  That's  just  like  my  father!" 
she  cried,  in  an  outburst  of  the  tempestu 
ous  nature  she  had  inherited  from  him. 
"  It's  his  everlasting  glorification  of  what 
he  calls  justice.  Do  you  know  what  will 
happen  to  my  father  some  day  ?' '  She  rose, 
and  the  two  women  stood  facing  each  other 
like  antagonists. 

14 


JUDGMENT 

Helen  reached  out  a  jealous  hand  and 
took  the  paper.  She  smoothed  its  folds 
as  if  it  were  precious  to  her,  coming,  even 
at  such  a  remove,  from  her  husband,  and 
laid  it  carefully  away.  The  girl  went  on : 

"  My  father  believes  in  the  old  Hebraic 
law — 'an  eye  for  an  eye.'  There's  some 
thing  in  it.  But  as  sure  as  he's  a  living 
man  and  tries  to  administer  it  himself, 
some  day  it  will  turn  on  him." 

"  Don't!"  commanded  the  wife.  "  You 
must  not,  Elizabeth." 

But  a  spirit  had  entered  into  the  girl, 
the  emotional  frenzy  that  made  her  like 
her  father  and  her  brother,  so  that  the 
three,  when  it  stirred  in  them  at  once, 
seemed  to  Helen  like  panoplied  warriors 
bent  on  battle. 

"  Justice  never  comes  the  way  we  think, ' ' 
she  continued,  in  a  rapid  flood—  •"  never ! 
Kent  expected  to  be  punished  for  that  old 
sin  of  his.  He  knew  the  scourge  would 
fall.  But  it's  Rosamond  who's  going  to 


JUDGMENT 

get  it,  and  Kent  will  have  to  see  her  wince. 
And  my  father— 

"  Don't  speak  of  your  father!"  cried  the 
other  woman,  with  a  voice  of  authority. 
"You  shall  not — in  that  tone!" 

Elizabeth  took  no  notice.  "  My  father 
frightens  me,"  she  said,  "he  is  so  hard. 
He  thinks  he  knows.  He  means  to  mete 
out  justice.  He  won't  stand  by  the  sinner 
while  God  wields  the  knout.  He  won't 
bend.  Helen,  sometime  he'll  have  to 
break." 

"Would  you  have  him  yield  to  an  un 
just  demand?"  flamed  Helen,  in  a  swift 
defence.  '  You  and  I  yield  because  we 
are  women  and  because  Rosamond  must 
be  saved.  Men  are  different." 

"My  father  is  different,"  said  the  girl. 
"  He  is  so  different  he  can  send  a  tele 
gram  like  that,  and  stand  aside  and  let 
the  wheels  roll  on,  no  matter  whom  they 
crush.  Sometime  he  will  be  punished." 

Helen  was  shuddering  under  the  on- 
16 


JUDGMENT 

slaught  of  the  passionate  young  voice,  and 
Elizabeth  hardly  paused. 

"I  have  watched  my  father  for  years, 
and  I  have  seen  him  get  his  punishments. 
But  the  trouble  is,  he  never  knows  them 
when  they  come.  There  was  another  time 
when  he  started  justice  rolling,  and  stood 
aside  to  let  it  take  its  course.  He  al 
lowed  the  battle  to  be  fought  without 
him—" 

"No,  Bess,  no!" 

"You  fought  it  for  him,  without  pre 
cisely  knowing  what  you  fought,  poor 
dear!  You  simply  knew  there  was  dead 
ly  warfare  between  my  father  and  me. 
You  broke,  trying  to  patch  it  up.  We 
managed  to  crush  you,  my  father  and  I 
together.  You  were  ill  three  years,  and 
he  never  knew  what  hurt  you.  You'd  be 
ill  now  if  I  hadn't  refused  to  eat  his  bread 
and  taken  myself  out  of  the  way.  But  for 
those  three  years  he  had  to  see  you  suffer. 
And  he  adores  you,  Helen." 
17 


JUDGMENT 

The  other  woman's  face  broke  into  a 
quiver  like  that  of  tears.     She  looked  di 
vinely  happy.     "Yes,"  she  said,  softly— 
"yes,  he  does." 

"  And  that  is  the  way  he'll  be  paid  back. 
Life  will  strike  him  there.  He  has  left 
people  alone  to  fight  out  what  he  presumes 
to  think  they  have  deserved.  He  will  be 
left  alone.  That  will  be  his  judgment. 
He  has  stood  here,  beckoning  and  beckon 
ing  to  it.  It  will  come." 

Helen  was  not  trembling  now;  a  no 
ble  calm  enveloped  her.  "No,"  said  she. 
"No.  We  must  fight  it  off." 

"You  can't  fight  off  law.  That's  what 
it  is — this  course  of  things.  It's  law." 

Helen  spoke  swiftly  with  the  rush  of  in 
spiration,  poesy  meeting  fact. 

"There  is  a  law  above  the  law.  They 
are  like  the  steps  to  an  altar.  I  shall 
fight  my  way  up  over  them,  to  that  last 
appeal." 

Elizabeth  put  a  hand  upon  the  slender 
18 


JUDGMENT 

wrist.     The  muscles  felt  like  iron  to  her 
touch. 

"You  are  a  gallant  thing,  Helen,"  she 
said,  "but  your  fighting  won't  do  any  good. 
My  father  needs  to  be  smashed.  He  needs 
straight  talk,  crude  common-sense.  You 
live  here  with  your  flowers  and  books, 
praying  for  him.  It's  lovely,  but  it's  like 
the  old  simile — stroking  the  turtle's  shell." 

Helen  had  scarcely  heard.  Her  delicate 
brows  were  drawn  together  in  a  frown. 
She  began  with  difficulty  to  set  forth  what 
she  had  never  clearly  formulated,  even  to 
herself. 

"  Sometimes  I  think  what  we  call  the 
will  of  God  is  our  own  will:  not  our  in 
dividual  will,  but  the  accumulated  word 
of  generation  upon  generation.  We  are 
like  voices  that  cry  out,  demanding  some 
thing.  We  decree  love  and  we  get  it— 
for  somebody.  It  is  like  a  beautiful  cre 
ation,  like  flowers  in  a  garden.  Or  we  call 
for  vengeance." 


JUDGMENT 

"  We  are  not  so  big  as  that,  not  so  im 
portant.  We  are  atoms,  dear.  The  laws 
were  made  and  given  us." 

"Sometimes  I  think  we  make  the  law 
by  our  desires.  No,  we  don't  make  it;  we 
call  it  out  from  where  it  sleeps.  So,  if  a 
person  hurts  me,  I  must  not  remember  it. 
I  must  hide  it  even  from  myself,  for  fear 
my  cry  is  heard,  for  fear  that  little  com 
pensating  lash  flies  back  to  strike  the  hand 
that  bruised  me." 

Elizabeth  smiled  at  her  with  an  extreme 
tenderness,  yet  as  one  who  recognized  a 
fantasy  and  felt  she  must  indulge  it. 

"It  almost  seems,  Helen,"  said  she, 
quizzically,  in  the  midst  of  her  foreboding, 
"  as  if  you  had  taken  out  a  patent  for  hood 
winking  the  universe." 

Helen  smiled  back  at  her;  but  she  an 
swered,  gravely: 

"The  universe  is  a  fluent  thing.  It 
moves  here  and  there,  like  the  deep  sea. 
How  many  laws  science  has  called  forth 
20 


JUDGMENT 

from  where  they  seemed  to  sleep!  Well, 
the  spirit  has  its  laws." 

"  So  you  don't  want  me  to  mention  my 
father's  transgressions,  for  fear  God  will 
hear,  and  punish  him." 

"  I  don't  want  you  to  .beckon  his  pun 
ishments.  That  was  what  you  said  your 
self,  awhile  ago.  We  beckon  things." 

"What  do  you  want  me  to  do?" 

"  I  want  you  to  take  hold  with  me, 
and  lift  with  both  your  hands.  There  are 
things  which  we  can't  do,  because  your 
father  should  decide  them.  We  can't 
meddle.  Still  we  must  act." 

"Sit  down,  dear,"  said  Elizabeth,  gen 
tly. 

Helen  seemed  to  her  a  beautiful  enthu 
siast,  quite  unrelated  to  the  present  world. 
She  was  a  book  to  be  read  by  the  fire,  a 
strain  of  music  heard  at  twilight  to  fit  the 
worker  for  next  day's  wrestling;  but  not 
herself  suited,  through  divine  intent,  to 
dusty  ways. 

21 


JUDGMENT 

"I  shall  take  hold,"  she  said.  "We 
must  think  how." 

Helen  settled  to  an  immediate  consid 
eration  of  the  moment.  The  mystical  look 
had  faded  from  her  face.  Yet  it  was  hard 
ly  mystical.  It  was  the  seeking  gaze  of 
one  who  strives  to  find  untrodden  paths. 

"  We  must  be  practical,"  she  said.  "  The 
woman  herself  is  clever.  We  must  be 


more  so." 


"I  still  say,"  argued  Elizabeth,  her 
hands  on  her  knees  in  an  attitude  of  mus 
ing,  "that  I  should  temporize.  I  should 
stave  her  off  until  Kent  comes." 

Helen  shook  her  head. 

"If  you  could  see  her,"  she  returned, 
"you  wouldn't  entertain  that  for  a  mo 
ment.  She  has  laid  her  train.  She  is  en 
tirely  resolved  and  absolutely  methodical. 
She  will  do  exactly  what  she  says." 

"  I  still  don't  see  why  you  are  afraid  to 
call  in  a  lawyer." 

:<  You'd  know  if  you  saw  her.     She  told 

22 


JUDGMENT 

me  she  had  half  a  dozen  ways  of  reaching 
us,  if  we  choked  her  off.  Through  the  pa 
pers,  she  said.  Kent  has  his  enemies— 

"Yes,  like  father.  Kent  has  flaunted 
justice.  Dear  as  he  is,  he  has  dealt  some 
knock-down  blows." 

"  And  now  when  he  is  coming  home  with 
his  laurels,  when  he's  on  everybody's 
tongue,  'the  brilliant  war  correspondent,' 
now  he  must  pay!  There  are  two  papers 
I  can  think  of  that  would  be  glad  to 
make  him  smart." 

Elizabeth  nodded. 

"  Yes.  Kent  called  them  scurvy  sheets. 
That  was  the  least  of  it.  He's  been  a  good 
fighter,  and  there  was  a  time  when  he 
couldn't  move  without  infuriating  some 
one.  He  acted  as  if  he  were  cast  for  the 
Archangel  Michael.  That  won't  do.  I  won 
der  he  has  escaped  satire.  But  he's  a 
splendid  dear!"  Justice  flamed  up  in  her. 
"  I  said  I'd  pay  Jane  Harding.  I  wouldn't. 
I'd  fight  it  out." 

23 


JUDGMENT 

Then  both  women  thought  of  Rosa 
mond,  and  their  blood  cooled.  This  was 
not  to  be  contested  while  innocence  stood 
in  the  background,  for  random  shafts  to 
strike. 

"  Send  for  my  father,"  counselled  Eliza 
beth.  "He  must  come,  at  least." 

Helen  shook  her  head  drearily. 

"He  won't  come,"  she  answered.  "He 
will  fight  out  the  strike." 

"  Yes,  he  will.  And  if  ever  there  was  a 
just  strike,  this  is  it." 

"But  your  father  won't  yield,  Bess. 
He  can't."  Her  defence  was  hot  again. 

"Why  can't  he  yield  except  that  he's 
my  father — old  John  Markham,  who  will 
go  on  banging  his  head  into  brick  walls 
until  he  batters  out  his  brains?" 

"  He  is  investigating  the  situation.  If 
their  demands  are  just,  your  father  will 
accede.  Not  otherwise.  And  not  because 
they  force  him." 

"No,"  said  Elizabeth,  dryly,  "not  be- 
24 


JUDGMENT 

cause  they  force  him.  It  will  take  the 
Hebrew  God  to  force  my  father." 

"What  would  you  do,"  asked  Helen, 
suddenly,  "if  you  met  a  case  like  this 
among  your  neighbors  at  the  settle 
ment?"  ' 

"Do?  Buck  up  against  it.  Shake  my 
fist  in  its  face.  Find  Jane  Harding,  run 
her  to  earth — but  where  is  the  woman?" 

Again  Helen  shook  her  head.  "  I  don't 
know." 

"How  are  you  to  communicate  with 
her? 

"She  is  coming  here." 

"When?" 

"  She  wouldn't  say.  She  did  say  it 
would  do  no  good  to  follow  her  or  hunt 
her  down.  If  she  should  fail,  others  are 
ready  to  carry  out  the  plan." 

"She  brought  the  letters  here?" 

"Copies  of  them.     She  left  those  with 


me." 


11  What  for?" 

25 


JUDGMENT 

"  She  wanted  me  to  read  them  through. 
I  had  heard  only  the  parts  she  chose." 

"Have  you  read  them?" 

"No." 

"Why  not?" 

"They  were  Kent's.  I  hadn't  any 
right." 

"Stuff  and  nonsense,  Helen!  They're 
not  letters  now — they're  evidence.  Where 
are  they?" 

Helen  pointed  to  the  library-table.  "  In 
that  drawer." 

Elizabeth  rose  and  pulled  at  the  drawer. 
It  was  locked. 

"  I  don't  feel  sure  we  have  a  right  to  see 
those  letters,"  said  Helen,  regarding  her  in 
a  doubtful  consideration. 

"  Letters  that  have  been  read  by  Jane 
Harding,  copied,  bandied  about  we  don't 
know  where  ?"  A  thought  assailed  her  and 
took  her  breath.  "Why  are  you  so  sure 
they  are  Kent's  letters,  after  all?" 

"  She  read  me  parts  of  them,"  said  Helen 
26 


JUDGMENT 

again.  "That  was  the  way  she  began. 
She  said  it  was  the  case  of  a  poor  woman. 
She  wanted  my  advice.  She  read  a  little 
here  and  there,  and  suddenly  the  truth 
broke  in  on  me.  They  were  Kent's  letters. 
Those  were  his  turns  of  style,  his  tricks  of 
speech.  I  stopped  her.  She  didn't  need 
to  tell  me." 

"  Were  they  " — Elizabeth's  tone  was  low 
and  her  face  burned  red — "  were  they  love- 
letters?" 

"  No,  not  in  any  particular.  If  they  ever 
could  have  been,  the  time  had  passed. 
They  were  very  practical,  yet  very  sad. 
There  was  a  tired  tone  about  them.  They 
were  a  good  deal  like  Kent  before  he  found 
Rosamond.  They  were  about  money  chief 
ly.  About  marriage,  too.  He  wished  to 
marry  Linda." 

"Why  didn't  she  marry  him?"  said 
Elizabeth,  musingly.  "Why  not,  I  won 
der?" 

"  Jane  told  me.  By  that  time  there  was 
27 


JUDGMENT 

another  man,  a  man  she  did  like.     She 
never  cared  for  Kent." 

The  girl  rose  in  quick  revolt,  and  then 
sat  down  again. 

"It's  pretty  tawdry,  isn't  it?"  she  said. 

Helen  nodded,  without  looking  up,  as 
at  a  situation  over  which  she  had  pon 
dered  more  than  her  fill. 

"  When  was  this?"  asked  Elizabeth,  sud 
denly. 

"  It  was  the  year  Kent  left  home." 

The  girl's  face  flamed,  and  then  as  rap 
idly  grew  white. 

"  The  year  my  father  quarrelled  with 
him  when  he  stood  by  Graham  Landor 
and  wouldn't  give  him  up  because  he  was 
disgraced,"  she  said,  in  a  swift  current  of 
hot  speech.  "  Nobody  would  talk  about  it 
with  me  then.  I  didn't  know  it  all  until 
long  after." 

"  It  was  that  year,"  said  Helen,  quietly. 
"  Kent  had  very  little  money.     He  board 
ed  near  the  Hardings'.     Jane  said  so." 
28 


JUDGMENT 

Elizabeth  sat  meditating,  her  mouth  in 
an  iron  line.  She  seemed  to  be  straying 
farther  and  farther  into  some  byway  of 
old  thought.  When  she  recalled  herself, 
it  was  as  one  who  forswears  such  sad  in 
dulgences  that  she  may  act  instead. 

''Well,"  said  she,  conclusively,  "I  think 
I  must  see  those  letters." 

Her  will,  so  like  John  Markham's,  moved 
the  wife,  used  to  compliance,  like  a  mes 
sage  from  him. 

"I  think  so,  too,"  said  she.  "Here 
is  the  key."  She  drew  it  from  her  chate 
laine,  and  Elizabeth,  with  a  quick  decisive 
ness,  unlocked  the  drawer.  She  took  out 
a  package  and  held  it  up. 

"  Yes,"  said  Helen,  "there  they  are." 

A  soft  rush  and  rustle  fleeted  through 
the  hall.  The  two  women  looked  at  each 
other  in  startled  questioning.  A  girl  stood 
in  the  doorway,  lightly  poised  upon  a  run 
ning  foot.  She  was  of  the  angelic  type,  to 
grow  into  a  Madonna  when  life  should  veil 
29 


JUDGMENT 

her  in  new  knowledge  and  desire.  Her 
face  had  the  beauty  of  the  blonde,  alive 
now  with  merry  expectation.  She  threw 
back  her  cloak,  and,  hastening  forward, 
took  Helen's  hands  and  kissed  them. 

"  Rosamond!"  breathed  Helen,  and  Eliz 
abeth  echoed, 

"  Rosamond!" 


II 


ELIZABETH  sat  there  with  the  letters 
in  her  hand  while  the  two  other  wom 
en  kissed  and  looked  at  each  other  in  a 
frank  delight.  When  Rosamond  turned  to 
her,  with  the  same  abounding  sweetness 
and  certainty  of  welcome,  she  rose,  and  they 
clasped  hands  like  comrades.  Immediate 
ly  Elizabeth  wheeled  about  and  laid  the 
letters  in  the  drawer.  Then  they  sat  down, 
Rosamond  in  a  low  chair  obliquely  to  the 
fire,  so  that  she  faced  them  both.  She 
had  the  flush  of  roses;  her  soft  hair  had 
tangled  under  her  hood,  and  her  eyes  were 
full  of  light — the  glow  of  youth  and  mount 
ing  spirits.  She  looked  like  an  untouched 
thing,  crowned  with  hope  and  all  the  prom 
ises.  She  laughed  out,  as  if  life  were  seeth- 
31 


JUDGMENT 

ing  in  her,  overtopping  the  commonplace 
moment  in  a  yeast  of  foam. 

"  I  ran  away,"  said  she.  "  I  telephoned 
for  a  carriage,  and  left  mamma  word  that 
I  was  here  with  you.  She  was  sleeping 
like  a  baby." 

"Then  she  is  better?"  asked  Helen, 
smiling  at  her  with  the  delight  of  mater 
nity  itself  in  such  embodied  expectation. 

"  She  is  amazingly  better.  This  is  the 
first  day  I  haven't  been  afraid.  Dear- 
dears,  both  of  you!  when  do  you  think 
Kent  will  be  home?" 

She  looked  from  one  to  the  other  in  a 
most  obvious  anticipation.  Her  premon 
itory  joy  was  too  great  to  admit  of  sub 
terfuge.  Elizabeth  brusquely  changed  her 
attitude,  and  Helen  answered: 

"  He's  due  a  week  from— 

"Due,  Mrs.  Markham!  Please,  please 
don't  put  it  that  way !  Not  when  he  ought 
to  come,  but  when  he's  coming'  I  want 
certainties." 

32 


NOW,'    SAID    SHE,    'LET'S    TALK    ABOUT    KENT!'" 


JUDGMENT 

Elizabeth  rose  and  shook  herself,  as  if 
she  thrust  away  her  own  discomfort. 

"I  must  go,"  she  said.  "I  promised 
to  be  back  at  ten.  But  I'll  come  round 
to-morrow."  She  took  Helen's  hand,  and 
then  bent  forward  and  kissed  her.  It  was 
a  rare  caress,  and  the  tears  started  to 
Helen's  eyes. 

Rosamond  raised  her  pretty  brows. 

"Dear  me!"  said  she,  when  Elizabeth 
had  left  the  room.  "  Isn't  Bess  affection 
ate?  I  wish  she'd  expend  some  of  her 
bottled  ecstasy  on  me."  She  laughed,  a 
low,  joyous  ripple,  and  slipped  from  her 
chair  to  the  floor  at  Helen's  knee.  She 
laid  her  cheek  on  the  older  woman's  hand 
and  looked  into  the  fire  happily. 

"Now,"  said  she,  "let's  talk  about 
Kent!" 

It  was  an  old  topic ;  the  ways  of  gilding 
it  were  understood  between  them. 

"Well,"  said  Helen,  in  the  tone  of  be 
ginning  a  fairy  story,  "Kent  is  a  remark- 

33 


JUDGMENT 

able  person.  In  the  first  place,  he  is  a 
very  magnificent  war  correspondent— 

"Yes,  go  on." 

"He  is  coming  home  all  covered  over 
with  laurels—  She  stopped,  and  her 
brows  contracted. 

* '  Yes ,  y es !     Continues  ! ' ' 

"I  can't,  dear— I  can't!" 

Rosamond  lifted  her  head  and  looked 
up  into  Helen's  face.  She  was  surprised, 
and  that  hint  of  piquant  wistfulness  gave 
her  an  added  charm.  The  fire-light  flush 
ed  her,  and  played  upon  the  hue  it  made, 
and  her  hair  fell  deliciously  about  her 
face.  She  looked  like  a  nymph  in  disarray. 
Helen,  considering  her,  felt  her  own  heart 
fail.  The  moment's  question,  as  it  touch 
ed  Rosamond,  seemed  unanswerable.  This 
maiden-nature  was  a  citadel  not  to  be  as 
sailed  by  worldly  compromise.  She  won 
dered  whether  knowledge  of  sin  could  enter 
it  without  defacing  some  pure  shrine. 

"  What  is  it  ?"  asked  Rosamond.  "  You 
34 


JUDGMENT 

look  as  if  you  knew  things  you  couldn't 
tell.  It's  not  Kent?  Something  has  hap 
pened  to  him,  and  you  are  keeping  it  from 
me!" 

Helen  laughed,  with  the  false  mirth  that 
moves  upon  the  surface  of  a  hidden  mood. 

"Dear  heart,"  said  she,  "how  could  I 
hear  from  Kent  when  he's  on  the  ocean?" 

"  Not  a  word  from  him  since  that  cable 
from  Cape  Colony?" 

"Not  a  word,  Rosamond." 

The  girl  sighed  a  long  breath  and  drop 
ped  her  head  again.  Her  gaze  mused  off 
beyond  the  fire. 

"  I  am  too  happy,"  she  said.  "  It  makes 
me  apprehensive.  I  never  used  to  be 
afraid.  But  I  suppose  it's  because  I  care 
so  much.  The  earth  seems  like  a  bubble 
blown  round  Kent.  What  if  it  should 
break?" 

"  Don't  be  afraid.  Whatever  hap 
pens— 

The  maid  appeared  at  the  doorway  with 
35 


JUDGMENT 

a  visiting  -  card.  Helen  took  it,  and  by 
some  chance  movement  dropped  it,  face 
upward,  to  the  floor.  Rosamond  caught 
the  name. 

"Why,"  she  cried,  irrepressibly,  "Jane 
Harding !  I  remember  her.  She  gave 
Kent  lessons  —  in  botany,  wasn't  it,  and 
composition?"  She  rose,  and  began  pat 
ting  her  hair  into  place. 

"Ask  her  to  wait,"  said  Helen  to  the 
maid.  "  Not  in  the  hall.  In  the  recep 
tion-room." 

"I  haven't  thought  of  her  for  years," 
continued  Rosamond,  idly,  stretching  a 
foot  out  to  the  fire.  "  No,  dear,  I  won't 
sit  down  again.  Briggs  ought  to  be  here. 
I  left  word  for  him  to  come  and  walk  home 
with  me.  I  had  to  have  a  breath." 

Helen  rose  precipitately,  and  Rosamond 
followed  her  gaze  to  the  door.  Jane  Har 
ding  stood  there,  a  thin,  gaunt  figure  in 
meagre  black.  All  her  clothes  were  well 
calculated  to  withstand  the  disaster  of 
36 


JUDGMENT 

more  than  ordinary  wear;  they  might 
have  been  constructed  for  exacting  jour 
neys.  They  were  scanty,  exposing  small 
surface  to  the  wind.  Her  hat,  of  an  Alpine 
shape  outlawed  by  fashion,  had  a  band  of 
black;  it  was  tied  by  ribbons  under  her 
chin.  It  would  be  impossible  to  describe 
her  without  caricature,  and  yet  the  woman, 
in  her  self-respecting  decency,  could  never 
have  provoked  a  smile.  She  merely  be 
longed  to  another  age,  decried  by  servile 
fashion.  She  made  a  period  of  her  own. 
Her  face  was  the  unconscious  expression 
of  a  type:  the  thin  hair  drawn  back  and 
braided,  the  set  mouth,  the  undaunted 
chin,  and  eyes  overhung  by  the  shiny  fore 
head  of  an  uncompromising  intellectuality. 

"I  couldn't  very  well  wait,"  said  she; 
"so  I  came  up." 

Her  voice  was  dry  and  colorless.     All 

possible  similes  would  be  too  warm  beside 

its  neutral  quality.      Her  mouth  worked 

as  she  talked,  in  the  evident  determina- 

37 


JUDGMENT 

tion  to  deliver  words  precisely.  She  seem 
ed  to  be  exercising  them  with  a  prelim 
inary  canter  before  she  allowed  them  to 
emerge. 

Rosamond  turned  on  the  new-comer  one 
of  her  delightful  smiles. 

"You  don't  remember  me,  Mrs.  Har 
ding,"  said  she.  "  I  used  to  see  you  when 
I  was  a  little  girl." 

Something  moved  the  woman's  face.  It 
was  not  color  so  much  as  a  pale,  lunar 
image  of  emotion,  and  with  the  first  brief 
flicker  it  was  gone. 

"  It  has  been  a  long  time,"  she  respond 
ed,  from  a  vague  indifference — "a  great 
many  years." 

Helen  stepped  forward. 

'You  will  excuse  me,  Mrs.  Harding," 
said  she,  her  dignity  admitting  no  appeal. 
"  I  shall  have  to  ask  you  to  wait  for  a  few 
minutes.  If  you  will  step  into  the  study 
there  at  the  right— 

"No,  no!"  cried  Rosamond,  gathering 

38 


JUDGMENT 

up  her  cloak.  "I'm  going,  dear;  truly  I 
must.  But  let  me  ask  you  this:  mother 
has  taken  a  great  fancy  to  go  down  to 
Woodside  as  soon  as  she  can  be  moved. 
May  we?" 

"  Of  course.  The  house  is  partially 
closed.  Old  Sam  and  Hannah  are  living 
in  two  rooms;  but  we'll  have  the  fires 
started." 

"  So  I  told  her.  Still,  she  wants  me  to 
run  down  and  see  about  it.  I  had  to 
promise  her.  She's  like  a  baby.  I  told 
her  I'd  go  down  to-morrow." 

' '  Splendid !  You  need  some  country  air. 
I'll  telephone.  You  can  take  a  maid." 

"  I  may  not  be  able  to  take  anybody. 
We  have  lost  one  maid,  and  there  is  extra 
work.  I  can  go  perfectly  well  alone." 

"I  should  be  very  happy  to  go  down 
with  you  for  the  trip,  Miss  March,"  said 
Mrs.  Harding,  quietly.  "I  have  always 
wanted  to  see  Woodside  again." 

'Thank  you,"  answered  Rosamond,  in 

39 


JUDGMENT 

a  quick  gust  of  gratitude.  "Why,  thank 
you!" 

"  It  will  not  be  necessary,"  put  in  Helen, 
conclusively.  "I  will  telephone  you  to 
morrow,  Rosamond.  Shall  I  ask  if  Briggs 
has  come?" 

"  Please." 

The  girl  slipped  into  her  wrap,  and  stood 
hugging  it  about  her  with  premonition 
of  the  cold.  She  looked  like  a  celestial 
creature,  all  blue  raiment  and  the  hues 
of  youth. 

"Is  Briggs  down-stairs?"  asked  Helen 
of  the  maid. 

"No,  Mrs.  Markham." 

"Never  mind,  dear,"  said  Rosamond. 
"  I'll  run  home  by  myself.  It  won't  take 
me  ten  minutes.  I  shall  like  it." 

"  I  am  going  that  way,"  remarked  Jane 
Harding,  with  the  same  indifferent  civility. 
"  I  should  be  very  happy  to  walk  along 
with  you,  Miss  March." 

"No,  no!"  said  Helen,  violently. 
40 


JUDGMENT 

"  Rosamond,  I  shall  telephone  for  a  car 
riage.  Mrs.  Harding,  come  with  me, 
please."  She  stood  aside  for  Jane  to  pre 
cede  her  through  the  doorway,  and  the 
woman  went,  with  scarcely  a  movement  of 
her  spare  draperies. 

"  In  there,  if  you  please,"  said  Helen, 
pointing  with  an  authoritative  grace  to 
a  closed  portiere.  "Wait  for  me.  I  will 
call  you." 

At  that  moment  Briggs  was  reported 
as  having  arrived  below-stairs,  and  -she 
summoned  Rosamond.  They  said  good 
night  at  the  front  door,  and,  having  seen 
her  safely  away  with  the  old  man-servant, 
Helen  stood  there  a  moment  to  collect 
herself,  breathing  the  cold  air  and  looking 
up  at  the  uncountable  stars.  She  was  al 
ways  helped  by  distance  and  the  sugges 
tion  that  this  is  a  universe  and  not  merely 
a  world.  Then,  with  the  strength  of  larger 
life  in  her  lungs,  she  went  up-stairs  again, 
to  find  Jane  Harding. 


JUDGMENT 

The  portiere  had  been  pushed  aside ;  but 
Helen,  stepping  into  the  shaded  dusk  of 
the  study,  found  it  empty.  She  went  on 
to  the  door  opening  into  the  conservatory, 
and  there  she  paused.  Jane  Harding  stood 
in  that  flowery  seclusion,  lost  to  the  world 
without.  Save  in  her  poverty  -  stricken 
outline,  this  was  not  the  woman  who  had 
left  the  library  five  minutes  before.  She 
had  imbibed  life  from  something,  and  with 
it  a  semblance  of  the  vigor  that  makes  life 
sweet.  She  was  drinking  in  the  moist  air 
of  the  place;  but  it  was  more  than  mortal 
breath  that  moved  her  so.  A  flush  had 
risen  to  her  face  and  speciously  renewed 
it.  Her  rigorous  mouth  had  softened. 
She  was  a  different  woman.  Helen  stood 
there  in  silence,  not  conscious  of  any  pur 
pose  of  espial,  but  merely  confronting  a 
situation  she  did  not  understand.  At 
some  slight  movement  of  hers,  Jane  Har 
ding  came  to  herself  with  a  start  and  saw 
her.  She  seemed  to  recall  her  ordinary 
42 


JUDGMENT 

mood,  and  with  a  gulp  swallowed  down 
engrossing  passion.  But  she  had  to  speak, 
and  she  did  it  frankly. 

"  I  never  saw  such  a  sight  in  my  life," 
she  said,  in  a  broken  voice. 

"You  like  the  flowers?"  asked  Helen, 
gently.  "  Don't  you  want  to  go  through 
that  door  and  see  the  orchids?" 

"  Have  you  got  orchids?"  Some  touch 
of  nature  had  constrained  her  to  put  in  the 
superfluous  verb.  Her  previous  speech 
had  been  all  that  could  be  desired  by  up- 
to-date  grammarians  disporting  in  conten 
tious  journals.  That  flashed  upon  Helen. 
She  remembered  how,  in  their  other  talk, 
Jane  Harding  had  held  to  a  rigorous 
"  wouldn't  you  better,"  spoken  with  brava 
do.  This  advent  of  the  real  woman  had 
been  destructive.  Old  habit  had  pushed 
culture  from  the  stage,  and  itself  stood 
forth  there  nakedly. 

"Yes,"  said  Helen.  "Go  on.  I'll  fol 
low  you.  There!  open  that  door." 

43 


JUDGMENT 

Jane  Harding  stood  in  the  bewildering 
spot  where  golden  fortune  had  assembled 
strange  similitudes  of  other  life:  flowers 
like  birds,  like  butterflies,  like  snakes,  like 
everything  but  flowers.  She  looked  about 
her  as  if  she  saw  all  the  riches  of  the  king 
doms  of  the  earth.  The  old  story  of  caves 
lighted  by  jewels  dazzling  beyond  belief 
had  here  its  mate  in  this  true  happen 
ing  of  a  mortal  caught  by  a  bewildering 
pageantry. 

11  My  soul!"  groaned  Jane.     "  My  soul!" 

"  Mr.  Markham  is  very  fond  of  orchids," 
ventured  Helen,  in  puzzled  explanation. 
"  Not  quite  that,  perhaps.  It  isn't  so 
much  the  flowers;  he  enjoys  collecting 
them." 

''That's  what  money  can  do!"  said  the 
other  woman,  in  a  bitter  outcry.  "  It 
buys  you  things  like  these.  My  God!" 

Helen  went  up  to  her  and  laid  a  hand 
upon  her  arm. 

"Orchids  are  not  very  important,"  she 
44 


JUDGMENT 

said.  "I  don't  quite  like  them  myself. 
They  make  me  a  little  uneasy,  they  are 
so  ostentatious." 

"What  do  you  mean  by  ostentatious?" 
Helen  felt  the  strangeness  of  the  situa 
tion.  They  two  had  met  on  a  tragical 
ground;  but  they  now  seemed,  for  no  rea 
son  that  yet  appeared,  to  be  considering, 
with  equal  intensity,  something  which  had, 
in  her  mind,  no  weight  at  all.  Orchids, 
she  would  have  said,  bore  no  possible  sig 
nificance,  save  as  they  absorbed  money  or 
cost  life.  But  she  was  learning  things 
about  Jane  Harding  which,  she  was  in 
some  way  convinced,  could  not  be  even 
guessed  outside  the  orchid  -  house.  She 
sat  down  on  a  step,  and  motioned  the 
woman  to  sit  also.  But  Mrs.  Harding 
took  no  notice  of  the  inviting  gesture. 
She  walked  slowly  back  and  forth,  bend 
ing  to  one  and  another  of  the  swart, 
freckled  flowers,  inhaling  their  look  as  if 
it  were  perfume. 

45 


JUDGMENT 

1  'Ostentatious!"  said  Helen,  reflective 
ly.  "  Why,  I  mean  that  to  me  they  are 
remarkable  things,  which  do  not  pay  in 
the  least  for  the  trouble  spent  on  them, 
They  merely  stand  for  money." 

"  To  think  them  things  are  growing  out 
side  in  the  world  and  I  can't  get  at  'em!" 
said  Jane  Harding,  fiercely.  Her  gram 
matical  armor  had  fallen  from  her.  She 
was  plain  New  England  in  a  fret. 

"  But  why  do  you  want  to  get  at  them?" 

"I  want  it  because  I  want  it,"  said 
the  woman,  hotly,  turning  upon  her,  and 
speaking  as  if  she  addressed,  not  her,  but 
the  God  that  made  and  starved  or  nour 
ished  flowers  and  women  both.  "  I  was 
born  to  want  it.  You  look  here!  What 
kind  of  a  life  do  you  think  I've  lived?  I 
married  a  sot.  That's  what  he  was  —  a 
sot.  Lindy  was  like  him,  for  all  the  world. 
They  hadn't  any  principle.  When  he  was 
alive,  I  sewed.  But  I  was  bound  to  rise. 
When  he  died,  I  studied  till  I  passed  the 
46 


JUDGMENT 

examinations,  and  then  I  got  a  few  schol 
ars.  But  there  was  just  one  thing  I  want 
ed.  I  wanted  to  teach  botany.  I  fitted 
myself,  and  the  system  changed.  They 
had  microscope  work  then.  I  hadn't  any 
microscope.  I  went  back  to  sewing.  Lin- 
dy  went  to  the  devil.  I  couldn't  stop  her. 
I  kept  her  down  when  she  was  a  little  girl 
—so  many  hours'  study,  so  many  to  sew. 
She  wouldn't  learn.  She  couldn't.  She 
was  a  great  disappointment. ' '  Her  mouth 
closed  in  the  lines  of  a  savage,  though  not 
a  passionate,  memory. 

"  Poor  Lindy !"  breathed  Helen. 

"  No  child  ever  had  a  better  bringing 
up,"  went  on  the  woman,  in  an  honest 
justification.  "  No  child  in  the  world. 
She  was  under  my  eye  every  minute  I 
could  keep  her  there.  But  she  used  to 
run  away." 

"I  see." 

"  Well,  that's  all  there  is  about  it.  She 
was  handsome,  and  she  was  wild,  and 
47 


JUDGMENT 

she  went  to  the  bad.  After  she  died,  I 
made  up  my  mind  I'd  got  to  live  my  life. 
I  wanted  to  study  and  cultivate  myself. 
I  wanted  to  travel." 

"  Ah!"  said  Helen,  softly.     "That's  it!" 

"  I  got  hold  of  a  book."  Jane  Harding 
spoke  hurriedly  now,  with  keen,  dry  em 
phasis.  "  It  told  how  a  woman  went 
travelling  about,  painting  flowers  the  eye 
of  man  hadn't  seen.  She  went  every 
where.  She  went  to  the  Andes."  She 
pronounced  the  word  as  if  it  indicated 
paradise. 

"You  want  to  go  to  the  Andes!  You 
want  to  paint  flowers!" 

"  I  want  to  see  flowers,"  said  the  other, 
in  a  hungry  tone.  "  I  want  to  see  'em 
where  they  grow,  and  maybe  paint  'em, 
and  maybe  not." 

Her  hard,  thin  visage  was  relaxing  more 

and  more.     Helen  saw  how  complex  this 

craving  was,  made  out  of  the  best  of  her 

and  the  worst.     The  woman  had  an  in- 

48 


JUDGMENT 

born  longing  for  what  New  England  calls 
culture.  She  would  pursue  it  with  un 
wearied  foot,  though  it  led  her  to  the  grave. 
This  was  acquisition  of  as  real  a  sort  as  the 
amassing  of  property;  if  she  had  it  in  her 
mind,  she  would  go  about  doling  it  out  to 
women's  clubs  in  dry  little  talks  and  the 
distribution  of  herbarium  sheets  among 
the  audience.  But  there  was  another  side 
to  it,  as  clear  as  the  stream  of  individual 
desire  that  flows  into  us  all  from  the  crea 
tive  fount.  Her  passion  was  for  flowers. 
It  was  inexplicable,  it  was  illogical;  but 
there  it  was.  It  might  lead  her  hungering 
and  thirsting  through  dull  ways  of  study 
even  over  the  Andes ;  but  it  would  not  be 
stilled  until  death  had  hushed  her  heart. 

"I  think  it  might  be  brought  about," 
said  Helen.  Her  face  was  illuminated 
with  that  satisfaction  which  lies  in  giving 
hunger  what  it  wants,  not  what  it  needs. 
"If  you  long  to  travel,  I  believe  it  can  be 
managed." 

49 


JUDGMENT 

The  woman's  face  hardened  into  its  old, 
set  lines. 

"I  don't  accept  money,"  she  said,  now 
with  her  academic  utterance.  "  I  must 
pay  my  way." 

"You  asked  for  money.  You  demand 
ed  it." 

:<  That  was  my  just  dues." 

"For  what?" 

"  It  was  my  just  dues  for  what  I've  been 
through  with  Lindy.  She  ought  to  have 
been  a  teacher  and  paid  her  way.  Then 
we  could  have  put  something  aside.  She 
ate  up  everything  I  saved,  one  fashion  or 
another.  She  made  it  fly.  If  she  hadn't 
got  finery  to  trail  round  in  after  Kent 
Markham,  he  never'd  have  noticed  her. 
She  speculated  with  my  money  to  get  him. 
She  got  him.  Now  he  can  pay  me — you 
can — you  are  his  folks — for  all  that  fol 
lowed,  the  shame  and  all.  You  can  pay 


me." 


Helen  regarded  her  from  a  mood  that 


JUDGMENT 

turned  her  mouth  to  quivering  stern 
ness. 

"Be  honest,"  said  she.  "You  don't 
think  it's  your  just  dues.  You  simply 
want  something,  and  you  are  snatching 
at  it.  Then  you  invent  a  justification. 
You  want  to  go  abroad— 

"  I  must  have  something  laid  by,  so  I 
can  go  abroad  with  a  free  mind,"  said  the 
woman,  immovably.  "I  want  my  just 
dues." 

"  I  think  I  might  get  money  for  that, 
if  you  would  be  patient.  I  have  often  been 
able  to  help  people  carry  out  their  wishes. 
Not  the  sum  you  asked  for;  that  isn't 
just.  But  I  could  send  you  abroad— 

"  I  don't  want  charity.  I  want  my  just 
dues." 

"Why  do  you  demand  things?"  asked 
Helen,  impulsively.  "That's  no  way  to 
get  them.  Why  do  you  tell  me  you  must 
have  a  certain  sum  within  a  given  num 
ber  of  days?" 


JUDGMENT 

"You  are  afraid  of  my  telling  Rosa 
mond  March,"  said  Jane  Harding,  brief 
ly.  "That's  my  only  hold  over  you.  If 
I  wait  till  Kent  comes  home,  I've  got  no 
weapon." 

"  How  did  you  conceive  this  plan  ?  How 
do  you  know  Kent  himself  hasn't  told 
her?" 

"  I  saw  her  at  church.  I  knew  he  hadn't 
told  her." 

Helen  groaned.  "And  because  she 
looks  happy,  innocent,  untouched,  you 
make  use  of  her  to  threaten  me!" 

'You  can  pay  me  my  just  dues,"  said 
Jane  Harding,  implacably.  "Then  she 
needn't  be  told  at  all." 

Helen  sat  and  mused,  and  Mrs.  Har 
ding  turned  to  the  orchids;  immediately 
again  she  grew  transfigured.  Her  ordi 
nary  personality  faded;  it  melted  into  a 
dreamy  consideration  of  something  more 
beautiful  to  her  than  any  dream.  Helen's 
thoughts  were  far  afield.  She  was  con- 
52 


JUDGMENT 

scious  of  a  new  partisanship.  Jane  Har 
ding  had  become  one  of  the  army  to  be 
saved  from  judgment,  and  set  on  the  road 
of  doing  good  instead  of  ill.  She  recalled 
herself  at  sight  of  the  woman's  brooding 
attitude.  It  was  like  that  of  mothers 
above  cradles. 

"Pick  some  of  them,  if  you  like,"  said 
Helen.  "  Yes,  I  mean  it.  Pick  them!" 

"Pick  'em!"  responded  the  worshipper, 
in  a  melting  tone.  It  was  grotesque,  in 
misplaced  pathos,  like  the  endearments 
of  childless  women  over  makeshift  pets. 
"Pick  'em!  My  soul!  I  couldn't  pick  'em. 
Let  'em  grow." 

Her  manner,  like  her  voice,  betrayed 
new  gravity,  and  even  some  reproof.  This 
might  have  been  a  woman  who,  in  the 
midst  of  baby-worship,  finds  herself  coun 
selled  by  the  colder  bystander  to  shake  the 
child  into  an  admired  animation. 

"  Those  in  the  corner  are  very  precious, 
I  believe,"  said  Helen,  with  a  desultory 

53 


JUDGMENT 

wish  to  continue  their  mutual  knowledge. 
"  There  is  another  my  husband  has  never 
been  able  to  find.  He  has  a  very  inter 
esting  scheme,  he  and  Mr.  Graham  Lan- 
dor,  the  editor  of  the  Day.  They  mean 
to  send  a  young  man  to  South  America  in 
search  of  that  one  plant.  My  husband 
is  to  furnish  half  the  money  and  have  the 
orchid.  The  young  man  is  to  write  up 
his  adventures,  if  he  has  any,  for  the  Day." 
She  spoke  idly,  with  the  courteous  neces 
sity  she  always  felt  to  share  conversa 
tion  wherever  two  were  gathered  together. 
But  the  effect  of  that  small  common 
place  amazed  her. 

"My  Lord!"  cried  Jane  Harding,  all 
her  defences  gone  again.  "  A  man,  of 
course !  A  man !  That's  what  luck  will 
bring.  He  couldn't  do  it  a  mite  bet 
ter  than  I  could.  I  could  find  that 
plant." 

"  I  believe  you  could,"  responded  Helen, 
rising  in  admiration  of  her  dash  and  cour- 
54 


JUDGMENT 

age.  "  Mrs.  Harding,  don't  go  home. 
Spend  the  night  with  me." 

The  woman  looked  at  her  in  frank  sus 
picion. 

"  You  want  to  keep  your  eye  on  me," 
she  said. 

"  That's  not  why  I  am  asking  you.  I 
do  want  to  keep  my  eye  on  you;  but  that's 
not  it." 

Jane  Harding  stepped  past  her  with  the 
determination  of  the  drunkard  who  puts 
the  cup  aside.  Without  one  glance  be 
hind,  she  walked  through  the  conserva 
tory  to  the  room  beyond.  Helen  followed, 
and  outside  the  moist,  heavy  air,  the 
breath  of  things  she  loved,  Jane  Harding 
faced  her. 

"  I  want  my  just  dues,"  she  said. 

Helen  sickened  at  her  implacability. 
She  recurred  to  a  past  issue,  of  no  im 
portance  at  the  moment,  save  as  it  gave 
her  better  understanding  of  the  woman. 

"  Why  did  you  offer  to  walk  home  with 
55 


JUDGMENT 

Rosamond?"  she  asked.  "Why  did  you 
propose  going  to  Woodside  with  her?" 

"To  scare  you."  The  words  were  cool 
er  than  their  sense.  '  You  would  better 
learn  how  many  ways  I  can  find  of  seeing 
her  alone." 

The  very  meagreness  and  practicality 
of  the  woman  were,  in  themselves,  a  ter 
ror.  If  she  had  looked  the  adventuress, 
a  gypsy  crone,  a  hag  out  of  French  fiction, 
even  Helen  might  have  put  her  in  the 
hands  of  the  police.  She  was  a  decent 
New  England  matron,  of  pedagogical  am 
bitions  and  wandering  blood,  whose  in 
ward  spirit,  though  it  might  outvie  the 
martyrs,  would  veil  itself  in  an  impec 
cable  decorum.  This  was  the  New  Eng 
land  conscience  turned  to  longing  and  to 
crime ;  but  even  in  those  byways  it  would 
act  with  its  accustomed  rigor.  What  Jane 
Harding  had  resolved  upon,  that  she  could 
be  trusted  to  perform. 

"Stay  all  night  with  me,"  urged  Helen. 

56 


JUDGMENT 

"You  may  go  in  the  morning.  I  sha'n't 
interfere  with  you." 

"I  guess  you  won't  interfere  with  me," 
said  Mrs.  Harding,  the  free  -  born  Amer 
ican's  glint  coming  into  her  eyes.  "  I 
guess  I  should  go  home  in  the  morning, 
for  all  anybody." 

"The  orchids  are  beautiful  in  the  morn 
ing,"  ventured  Helen,  persuasively,  "with 
the  sun  on  them." 

The  Puritan  faltered;  the  monomaniac 
triumphed. 

"Well,"  said  Jane  Harding,  weakly, 
"maybe  I'll  stay." 

"Then  excuse  me  one  moment,  and  I'll 
show  you  to  your  room.  Go  back  among 
the  orchids,  if  you  like.  Turn  on  the  light, 
there  by  the  door." 

Helen  hurried  out  of  the  room,  and  ran 
across  the  hall  to  the  telephone.  Impulse, 
in  trying  situations,  was  her  slave;  some 
times  it  was  her  master.  At  the  moment 
she  could  not  tell  whether  this  were  wis- 

57 


JUDGMENT 

dom  or  mere  daring.  She  called  up  Gra 
ham  Landor  at  the  office  of  the  Day.  He 
would  be  there,  she  knew,  editing  the 
morning  paper. 

"Is  that  you,  Mr.  Landor?"  she  asked. 
"  Mrs.  Markham!  No,  nothing  is  the  mat 
ter.  Nothing  to  trouble  you.  We  are 
all  well.  Are  you  going  home  soon? 
Could  you  drop  in  to  see  me  on  the  way? 
No,  no  news  from  him.  The  strike?  No 
news.  Can  you  come?  Thank  you." 

She  hung  up  the  receiver,  and  stood 
there  a  moment,  weighing  her  action. 
Graham  Landor,  Kent's  friend,  an  old  in 
timate  of  them  all,  had  not  entered  the 
house  for  years.  No  one  had  told  her 
why,  and  she  had  stilled  her  queries  from 
an  unexplained  foreboding  that  the  de 
fection  was  to  Graham's  hurt.  Now  she 
wanted  him,  and,  life  being  very  simple  to 
her,  she  called  him.  She  brushed  aside 
the  possibility  of  unwisdom  in  her  act,  and 
with  the  excitement  of  anticipation  upon 
58 


JUDGMENT 

her,  went  back  to  the  study.  It  was 
empty.  She  smiled,  and  took  her  san 
guine  way  through  the  conservatory  to  the 
orchid -house.  It,  too,  was  dark — a  fra 
grant,  warm  seclusion. 

"  Didn't  you  understand  about  the  light  ?" 
she  called.  ' '  Here,  I  '11  do  it  for  you. " 

Its  brilliancy  roused  all  the  spotted 
things  to  living  wonder.  Struck  out 
against  the  riven  dark,  they  seemed  like 
creatures  newly  made. 

But  Jane  Harding  was  not  there.  Helen 
waited  a  moment,  with  an  uncanny  sense 
of  listening  for  the  breathing  of  a  person 
she  could  not  see.  There  was  no  sound. 
The  ear,  like  the  eye,  refused  to  find  her. 
Helen  ran  back  through  the  rooms  to  the 
hall-window  commanding  the  avenue.  She 
threw  up  the  sash  and  thrust  out  her  head. 
A  small  figure  was  walking  rapidly  down 
the  deserted  mall.  It  was  Jane  Harding. 
She  had  decided  not  to  spend  the  night 
there. 

59 


Ill 


HELEN  went  back  into  the  library  and 
sat  down  by  the  fire.  Again  she  was 
waiting,  with  an  expectation  intensified  by 
what  she  had  gone  through.  Recalling 
herself  presently  to  practical  needs,  she 
summoned  the  maid  and  told  her  to  have 
chocolate  ready,  and  some  food;  when  Mr. 
Landor  came,  he  was  to  be  sent  up  without 
delay.  Then,  with  nothing  to  do  until 
that  moment,  she  leaned  back  in  her  chair 
and  withdrew  into  compensating  medita 
tion.  She  had  been  a  wife  for  years;  and 
yet,  in  the  habit  of  her  fervent  thought, 
she  was  a  bride.  When  her  husband  was 
away,  she  had  hours  of  still  communion 
with  him,  made  up  of  memories  from  their 
life  together  and  also  of  that  rapt  con- 
60 


JUDGMENT 

sciousness  for  which  there  is  no  name.  A 
hundred  times  a  day  she  sent  her  soul 
to  him  with  inarticulate  messages:  the 
thoughts  that  bless,  the  prayers  like  crys 
tal  globes  of  safety  enclosing  a  beloved 
soul.  Helen  adored  the  man  in  a  way  in 
cluding  the  far  reaches  of  all  being.  It 
was  not  for  this  year  or  next  that  she  kept 
troth  with  him;  her  desire  ran  forward 
towards  unexplored  delights,  beseeching 
the  unknown  good  to  shower  them  on  him. 
She  was  like  a  mother  garnering  up  treas 
ure  for  an  improvident  child,  in  expecta 
tion  of  his  sometime  desiring  it. 

It  was  nearly  twelve  when  she  heard 
Landor  coming  up  the  stairs.  He  ap 
peared  in  the  doorway  unannounced:  a 
tall  fellow  of  sinewy  bulk,  with  a  firm  chin, 
a  hawk's  eye,  and  a  mouth  too  sensitive 
even  in  its  strength  to  promise  him  the 
ease  of  poor  contentments.  He  was  a 
man  who  had  seen  service  in  life.  His 
face  betrayed  it.  The  eyes  were  weary  of 
61 


JUDGMENT 

gazing  on  things  with  which  the  hands 
had  grappled. 

Helen  met  him  in  a  welcome  artlessly 
compounded  of  new  pleasure  and  un 
changing  fealties. 

"I'm  afraid  you  are  tired,"  she  said. 
;<  You  don't  run  up-stairs  as  you  used  to." 

He  answered  her  smile,  and  in  that  ir 
radiation  his  face  turned  sweet  and  boyish. 
Immediately  she  remembered  how  Kent 
had  introduced  him  to  her  years  ago;  no 
body,  Kent  said,  was  such  a  kid  as  Gra 
ham  Landor. 

"  It  wasn't  because  I  didn't  want  to 
come,"  said  he.  "I  am  tired,  dog-tired. 
But  five  minutes  by  the  fire  will  set  me 
right." 

"You're  going  to  have  a  tray.  Sit 
down  and  wait  for  it." 

But  he  could  not  compose  himself.  He 
walked  to  the  window  and  back  again, 
his  hands  in  his  pockets.  He  halted  there 
before  her. 

62 


JUDGMENT 

"  Mrs.  Markham,"  said  he,  impulsively, 
"what  made  you  send?  Has  anything 
happened?  Is  it — Elizabeth?" 

She  looked  up,  surprised. 

"  Elizabeth?  No,  it's  not  about  her. 
No,  this  is  business." 

He  sat  down,  and  the  frown  upon  his 
face  gave  way  delightfully. 

"I  didn't  know,"  said  he.  "  It's  so 
long  since  I've  been  here— 

The  maid  came  in  with  the  tray,  and 
Helen  poured  his  chocolate.  He  took  it 
absently,  and  she  had  to  jog  his  interest. 

"Come,"  she  said.  "Break  bread  with 
me." 

Then  he  did  eat,  and  the  food  cheered 
him.  He  shook  off  old  preoccupations 
and  gazed  at  her. 

"Now,"  said  Helen,  putting  down  her 
cup,  "this  is  why  I  summoned  you.  Is 
the  plan  still  on  for  sending  a  young  man 
orchid-hunting  ?' ' 

A  keener  look  ran  into  his  eyes.     He 

63 


JUDGMENT 

seemed  to  dismiss  his  intimate  and  per 
sonal  soul  in  favor  of  an  every-day  intelli 
gence. 

"It  is  still  on,"  he  said. 

"  Have  you  found  the  young  man?" 

"  No.  We've  considered  six,  but  they're 
no  good." 

"What  do  you  say  to  substituting  for 
a  young  man  a  middle-aged  New  England 
woman?" 

Landor  looked  at  her  through  the  dawn 
ing  of  a  more  inquisitive  discernment.  He 
took  off  his  eye-glasses  and  wiped  them. 
His  eyes  had  immediately  the  softened  look 
of  the  readjusted  focus.  A  smile  was  com 
ing,  perhaps  in  recognition  of  acumen  from 
a  quarter  whence  he  least  expected  it. 

"I  should  consider  it,"  he  responded, 
temperately.  '  This  is  the  day  of  woman ; 
it's  the  day  of  the  New  England  woman. 
Will  she  write  in  dialect?" 

"  She  will  write  decorously,  according 
to  no  one  less  than  Lindley  Murray." 

64 


JUDGMENT 

Momentarily  her  smile  answered  his,  and 
then  anxiety  returned,  to  reassert  itself. 
"  Briefly,  this  is  it.  A  woman  I  used  to 
know  has  just  been  here.  She  worked  for 
me  years  ago.  She  is  delirious  over  or 
chids,  and  she  wants  to  travel.  Her  mind 
is  set  on  culture ;  but  besides  that  she  has 
the  spirit  of  Borrow  and  Richard  Burton 
rolled  in  one.  She  would  hunt  your  or 
chids  to  the  death — or  anything  else  she 
set  herself  to  hunt!  I  thought  of  your 
quest.  I  thought  of  you — of  the  woman— 
of  myself.  It's  audacious;  but  then  you 
are  audacious." 

"  You  are  a  splendid  promoter.  I  didn't 
think  it  of  you."  He  came  upright  in  his 
chair,  and  flashed  his  sudden  smile  upon 
her.  "Dear  lady,"  said  he,  keenly,  "why 
are  you  doing  this?" 

She  had  been  deeply  moved  in  speak 
ing;  he  could  not  but  be  conscious  of  it. 
A  fine  reserve  controlled  her  usually;  she 
was  accessible  and  sweet,  open  to  all  hu- 


JUDGMENT 

man  needs,  yet  always,  as  it  seemed,  be 
hind  a  veil.  Now  something  stirred  her 
too  poignantly  to  be  ignored.  She  had 
an  end  in  view;  and,  seeking  it,  her  old 
fine  sanity  gave  way  to  eager  haste. 

"  I  want  to  help  the  woman,"  she  said. 
Her  cheeks  were  scarlet  now.  Her  eyes 
bent  upon  him  entreatingly.  "  I  want  to 
feed  the  starved  life  she  has  been  living. 
But  it's  more  than  that.  It's  more  per 
sonal.  I  have  another  motive,  and  that 
I  cannot  tell  you." 

"Shall  I  do  it  because  you  ask  me?" 

She  hesitated,  and  honesty  stood  by 
her. 

"No,"  she  answered.  "  No.  Do  it  if 
she  will  sell  your  paper." 

He  looked  at  her  a  moment  in  silence. 
He  was  besieging  her  hidden  reserves, 
speculating  upon  her  warmth. 

"  Is  Elizabeth  "—he  hesitated—"  is  Eliz 
abeth  concerned  in  this?" 

"No!"  She  glanced  at  him  in  pure  sur- 
66 


JUDGMENT 

prise.  "  Not  directly."  Then,  candidly  as 
she  had  spoken,  this  seemed  to  her  a  lie, 
and  she  added:  "We  are  all  concerned, 
more  or  less,  in  a  way.  But  you  are  not  to 
fash  yourself  with  that.  You  are  merely 
to  decide  whether  the  woman  will  do  the 
work  you  want,  and  trust  it  to  her." 

"Can  I  trust  her?"  asked  Landor,  with 
knitted  brows.  "That's  the  question." 

"  You  can  trust  her  to  do  a  piece  of  work 
like  that.  Her  heart  will  be  in  it.  So  will 
her  conscience." 

"  How  do  you  know  I  can  trust  her?" 

"I  feel  it." 

"The  mischief  you  do!"  said  Landor, 
shaking  his  head  at  her.  "  So  we  are  to 
fit  her  out  with  a  letter  of  credit,  and  ex 
pect  her  to  come  back  with  orchids  and  a 
manuscript  of  forty  thousand  words.  Have 
you  found  her  trustworthy?"  he  asked, 
suddenly,  in  direct  attack. 

She  looked  him  in  the  eyes,  her  own 
gaze  crystal-clear. 


JUDGMENT 

"No,"  she  said.  "She  has  behaved 
abominably.  I  am  afraid  of  her;  yet  I 
respect  her  very  much.  She  has  a  dis 
torted  conscience;  but  I  believe  she'd  let 
it  lead  her  to  the  stake.  She  is  cruel;  but 
then,  she  has  been  starved." 

"Starved?     Poor?     Is  she  poor?" 

"Her  soul  is  starved." 

He  shook  his  head. 

"Dear  lady,"  said  he,  "when  you  get 
to  souls,  you're  outside  my  bailiwick.  Well, 
let  me  see  the  creature.  When  can  I  meet 
her?  Where?" 

Helen  seemed  to  palter. 

"I  don't  know,"  she  answered,  weakly. 
"  When  she  comes,  when  I  see  her,  I  can 
send  her  to  you." 

"She'll  have  to  hurry,  then.  The 
scheme  ought  to  be  advertised  in  Satur 
day's  issue."  He  was  abstractedly  finger 
ing  at  the  pull  of  the  drawer;  and  for  no 
reason,  save  that  the  letters  were  within, 
the  action  made  her  nervous. 
68 


JUDGMENT 

"Turn  the  key,"  she  said,  with  a  little 
laugh.  " There!  give  it  to  me,  please. 
Elizabeth  put  some  papers  in  there  and 
neglected  to  lock  the  drawer.  They  make 
me  fanciful.  I  feel  as  if  they  might  jump 
out  and  punish  us — make  faces  at  us — for 
being  careless." 

" Elizabeth!"  he  repeated,  obeying  ab 
sently.  "  Elizabeth!  Has  she  been  here 
to-night?" 

Again  Helen  glanced  at  him,  mutely 
questioning  an  emphasis  disproportioned 
to  the  fact. 

"  Yes,"  she  said,  securing  the  key  to  her 
chatelaine.  "  Elizabeth  came  in  for  an 
hour." 

A  wave  of  feeling  touched  his  face  and 
then  engulfed  it.  He  threw  himself  back 
in  his  chair  as  if,  recognizing  the  great 
ness  of  the  emotion,  he  abandoned  him 
self  gladly. 

"Mrs.  Markham,"  he  said,  "I  haven't 
seen  Elizabeth  for  two  years.  We  are  in 


JUDGMENT 

the  same  city,  we  might  meet  at  any  cor 
ner;  yet  I  have  not  seen  her." 

"  No,"  said  she,  softly,  with  a  gentle  in 
terest,  "  we  never  see  you  now.  We  must 
amend  that.  You  used  to  be  here  so  much. 
Elizabeth  would  be  sorry —  Why,  Gra 
ham!  Gray!"  Kent's  old  name  for  him 
came  from  her  lips  without  premeditation. 

He  still  sat  there  with  eyes  tight  shut, 
and  something  about  him — his  attitude, 
his  air  —  arrested  her,  forbidding  further 
speech.  His  face,  even  under  its  suffusion, 
looked  mature  and  worn.  But  presently 
his  eyes  opened  to  meet  hers  in  sudden  ra 
diance.  He  smiled. 

"Yes,  Mrs.  Markham,"  he  said,  "it  was 
Elizabeth.  It's  always  been  Elizabeth. 
Didn't  you  know?" 

"  No,"  she  breathed.     "  I  never  knew." 

Landor  sat  upright,  and  a  different  spirit 
moved  upon  his  face.  It  grew  harder, 
yet  with  no  ignoble  stress.  He  looked  as 
if  he  were  savage  over  life  alone. 

70 


JUDGMENT 

"This  is  a  good  time  to  make  a  clean 
breast  of  it, ' '  he  said,  recklessly.  "  I  haven't 
confessed  since  my  mother  died .  I'm  tired 
enough  to  want  to  do  it."  The  clock 
struck.  "Twelve!  Are  you  too  much 
fagged?  Could  you  sit  here  for  half  an 
hour  and  let  me  talk  about  Elizabeth  ?  I 
never  talk  of  her.  I've  no  right  to.  She 
doesn't  belong  to  me,  though,  Heaven  help 
us,  I  belong  to  her.  She's  shut  up  inside 
me  somewhere.  God,  Mrs.  Markham!  let 
her  come  out  to-night.  Let's  talk  her 
over."  He  looked  like  a  man  fired  wor 
thily  by  some  passion,  ready  to  say  the 
things  he  might  repent  to-morrow.  She 
leaned  forward  and  laid  a  hand  upon  his 
arm.  At  that  moment  of  impulsive  sym 
pathy  he  was  as  near  to  her  as  Kent,  as 
much  her  own. 

"  Dear  heart,"  said  she,  "  of  course  we'll 
talk  about  Elizabeth." 

"The  most  gallant  girl  there  is!"  he  an 
swered,  as  if  it  were  a  toast.  "  The  most 


JUDGMENT 

splendid,  dear  old  girl !  Of  course  I  cared 
about  her,  Mrs.  Markham.  What  did  you 
think  I  came  here  for?" 

"  I  thought  you  were  Kent's  chum." 
'  That  was  why  I  came  at  first.  Then 
I  saw  her,  and  it  was  all  over  with  me :  for 
good,  for  life,  I  guess  it  is.  It  looks  that 
way.  But  no  wonder  you  didn't  know. 
She  was  at  boarding  -  school  a  lot.  We 
wrote  to  each  other.  I  hadn't  asked  her 
even,  but  she  must  have  understood.  Then 
it  all  came  out  about  the  land  frauds — you 
know,  Mrs.  Markham." 

"  I  know  a  little,"  she  hesitated.  "  My 
husband  told  me—  There  she  stopped. 

His  brows  darkened ;  he  looked  old. 

"Your  husband  was  quite  right,"  he 
said.  "It  was  pretty  tough  at  the  time; 
but  he  was  right.  How  much  do  you  re 
member  about  it,  anyway?" 

"  I  believe  there  was  a  newspaper  scan 
dal—  Again  she  paused. 

"You  don't  like  to  say  it?     You  may. 
72 


JUDGMENT 

I'm  used  to  it.  I've  thought  it  times 
enough.  This  is  how  it  was.  My  father 
had  an  elaborate  and  fraudulent  scheme 
for  making  money  out  of  the  Arable  Land 
Company.  He  had  the  stock,  he  had  the 
stockholders.  He  had  everything  but  the 
land.  Your  husband  found  it  out.  He 
exposed  us.  He  wrote  us  up  succinctly 
for  the  papers.  Kent  might  have  done  it 
brilliantly;  but  he  refused.  Meantime, 
while  my  father  was  being  disgraced,  I  was 
in  love  with  Bess." 

"He  couldn't  have  known,"  she  cried, 
swiftly.  "  My  husband  didn't  know — ': 

"Dear  lady,"  returned  Landor,  gently, 
"he  did  know;  but  he  was  quite  right.  I 
went  to  him  and  told  him.  I  urged  him  to 
delay  a  little,  and  let  me  see  if  I  could  get 
my  hand  on  the  helm.  I  had  an  idea  I 
might  save  a  smash,  and  give  every  man 
his  own,  without  disgrace.  I  told  him  so. 
But  he  refused.  Justice  had  got  to  be 
done,  he  said;  it  must  be  done  quickly." 

73 


JUDGMENT 

A  groan  burst  from  her  lips.  Landor 
forestalled  her  words. 

"Dear  Mrs.  Markham,  do  you  suppose 
I'd  tell  you  this  if  I  didn't  believe  he  was 
right?  I  didn't  think  so  at  the  time.  I 
thought  he  was  a  devil.  For  I  told  him  I 
wanted  Bess,  and  I  begged  him  to  leave 
me  my  good  name  to  offer  her.  And  he 
refused.  Well,  my  father  died.  No,  I 
don't  think  that  hastened  it.  The  Land 
Company  failed.  Your  husband  had 
smashed  it.  The  widows  and  orphans  who 
trusted  us  went  to  the  wall.  My  father 
left  me  some  money.  I  decided,  rightly 
or  wrongly,  I  don't  know  which,  that  the 
stockholders  were  not  my  business.  I 
bought  the  Day  and  worked  like  a  bea 
ver  on  it.  But  the  tougher  struggle  I 
had — "  he  spoke  musingly,  looking  into 
the  fire. 

"  Yes,"  said  Helen,  eagerly— " yes!" 

He  glanced  up  at  her  with  his  quick,  re 
sponsive  brightness.  He  looked  like  a  lov- 
74 


JUDGMENT 

able  boy,  and  her  heart  warmed  to  him 
anew. 

"Mrs.  Markham,"  said  he,  "you  may 
think  me  a  sentimentalist;  but  the  more  I 
struggled,  the  more  certain  I  was  that  I'd 
got  to  shoulder  the  stock  of  the  defunct 
Land  Company." 

"Of  course  you  did!"  she  cried,  as  if  it 
were  a  triumph  of  her  own.  "  Oh,  what 
splendid  things  men  are!" 

He  shook  his  head. 

"No,"  said  he,  whimsically.  "No.  I 
wasn't  a  splendid  thing.  I  wasn't  even 
irreproachable  in  the  way  I'd  climbed.  I 
was  having  some  sort  of  success,  and  I 
couldn't  have  had  it  so  soon  if  I  hadn't  got 
it  through  setting  my  feet  on  the  faces  of 
other  men.  Or,  rather,  my  father  had  set 
his  feet  there,  and  I  climbed  on  what  he 
left  me.  But  when  it  dawned  on  me  that 
I'd  got  to  pay  his  debts — Jove!  wasn't  I 
disgusted  when  that  came  over  me ! — I  had 
to  work  all  the  harder.  But  I've  grubbed, 

75 


JUDGMENT 

and  I've  lived  plainly,  and  now  I'm  feed 
ing  the  maw  of  an  insatiate  monster  called 
the  stockholders  of  Arable  Land." 

"  Dear  boy,"  she  said,  the  mother  in  her 
all  awake,  "  how  proud  we  ought  to  be  of 
you!  And  Bess!  Have  you  told  Bess?" 

He  looked  at  her  in  plain  surprise. 

"  Why,  no, "  said  he.  "I  never  have  told 
Bess.  How  could  I?  I've  nothing  to 
offer  her.  The  money  I  earn  goes  to 
Arable  Land.  I  have  nothing  on  earth 
to  offer  Bess  but  a  name,  and  that  is 
smirched." 

"Smirched!  Let  us  see  what  she  says 
to  that.  Let  us  see  what  my  husband 
says." 

"  Mr.  Markham  said  everything  he  had 
to  say  on  that  head  in  the  beginning,"  re 
turned  Landor,  dryly.  "We  talked  that 
over  when  I  put  my  first  plea  to  him. 
He  told  me  then  that  I  was  of  bad  stock, 
tricky  through  and  through.  I  was  furi 
ous.  Yes,  Mrs.  Markham,  I  was.  But  in 
76 


JUDGMENT 

the  course  of  a  year  or  so  I  came  to  the 
conclusion  that  maybe  he  was  right.  I 
thought  possibly  a  fellow  more  seaworthy, 
more  tautly  built,  might  not  have  been 
willing  to  inherit  money  made  as  my  father 
made  it.  Oh  yes,  I  knew  pretty  well  what 
his  schemes  had  been:  I  knew  they'd  pass 
muster  in  Wall  Street,  but  not  under  the 
Mosaic  law.  I  was  '  of  bad  stock.'  I  was, 
you  see !  So,  having  recognized  it,  I  walk 
ed  Spanish.  I  toed  the  line.  There  are 
no  tricks  to  be  laid  at  my  door,  Mrs.  Mark- 
ham."  He  looked  her  in  the  face,  smiling 
again  in  his  boyish  way,  but  speaking  with 
a  homespun  honesty  quite  devoid  of  pride. 
"I  watch  myself,"  he  added.  "I  can't 
afford  to  skulk.  I  don't  dare  to.  But 
Bess!  Oh,  ye  gods!  how  young  I  feel  to 
be  in  a  room  where  Bess  has  been — and 

isn't. 

1  Only  to  kiss  that  air,'  " 

he  sang, 

'"That  lately  kissed  thee!'" 
77 


JUDGMENT 

He  was  chaffing  his  emotions,  yet  they 
mastered  him.  Hunger  looked  from  his 
eyes.  Helen  felt  her  throat  constrict  in 
poignant  sympathy. 

"Gray,"  said  she,  "we  shouldn't  have 
let  you  bear  all  this  alone." 

"Oh,  you  couldn't  have  helped  it!"  he 
returned,  quite  simply.  "A  man  has  got 
to  meet  his  life  himself.  What  could  any 
of  you  have  done?" 

She  was  silent ;  but  she  knew  what  they 
might  have  done.  She  saw  him  accepted 
at  the  house,  for  Kent's  sake  and  his  own, 
and  fancied  him  working  out  his  destiny 
as  he  had  wrought  it,  yet  not  uncompan- 
ioned.  Many  things  were  made  plain  to 
her  in  that  moment.  She  knew  why  Bess 
had  gone  away  from  home  rather  than  take 
bread  from  her  father's  hand.  And  all 
this  was  not  because  John  Markham  had 
dealt  justly,  but  because  he  had  not  re 
membered  mercy.  And  recalling  Eliza 
beth's  bitter  cry  against  him,  she  saw  judg- 
78 


JUDGMENT 

ment  walking  towards  him,  and  involun 
tarily  put  out  both  hands  as  if  to  ward  it 
off.  * 

"What  is  it,  Mrs.  Markham?"  Landor 
was  asking  with  concern;  and  then  she 
realized  that  she  had  been  in  that  mys 
tical  world  of  hers  where  souls  seemed 
ever  battling ;  and  that  she  must  come  out 
and  meet  the  moment.  But  her  eyes  were 
wet,  the  lashes  clogged  by  tears. 

"Don't  be  bothered,"  said  Landor. 
"Why  are  you  so  sorry?" 

She  could  not  tell  him  without  betray 
ing  the  man  for  whom,  in  his  own  judicial 
arrogance,  she  was  most  sorry;  but  she 
said,  in  a  sad  commonplace: 

"  It  has  been  unnecessarily  hard  for  you. 
If  we  had  known — if  we  had  stood  by  you 
—it  need  not  have  been  so  hard." 

"Not  a  bit  of  it,"  he  responded,  in  his 

easy  manner.     "It's  been  good  for  me, 

mighty  good.     It  toughened  me.     Keep  it 

to  yourself,   Mrs.   Markham.     Don't  tell. 

79 


JUDGMENT 

I  shouldn't  have  broken  down  like  this, 
but  I  know  you  never  tell.  Kent  used  to 
say  so.  By-the-way,  when  do  you  expect 
him?" 

She  told  him,  and  the  date  brought  up 
the  vision  of  Jane  Harding. 

"I  should  like  to  see  Kent,"  said  he, 
musingly,  looking  into  the  fire.  "  I  wish 
we  could  go  back  a  few  years  and  have 
a  little  fun — all  hands  round — everybody 
trusting  everybody  else." 

"  I  don't  see  why  it  should  have  sepa 
rated  you  and  Kent,"  she  ventured,  hum 
bly.  She  dared  not  speak  of  Bess. 

lie  looked  at  her  in  frank  surprise. 

"Why,  I  was  huffy,  Mrs.  Markham!" 
said  he.  "Was  it  temper,  though,  or  was 
it  pride?  My  father  had  been  called  a 
sneak,  and  I  was  the  son  of  a  sneak.  I 
forswore  the  whole  troop  of  you.  All  but 
Bess — dear  old  Bess!  Well,  that's  enough 
of  her  to-night.  When  can  I  see  your 
1  peripatetic,  very  magnetic '  orchid-hunt- 
80 


JUDGMENT 

ress?"  He  rose  and  stood  looking  down 
at  her. 

"I  can't  let  you  undertake  that,"  said 
Helen,  suddenly. 

"Why?" 

"Because  it  benefits  me  —  it  benefits 
us." 

"  Gammon!  Let  me  see  the  woman  and 
judge.  I  sha'n't  take  her  unless  she'll  do 
the  trick.  Can't  afford  it.  I've  got  to 
think  of  Arable  Land." 

Helen  had  risen,  and  they  clasped 
hands.  She  was  looking  at  him  in  a  mute 
petition,  and  he  interpreted  it. 

"  No,  bless  you,"  said  he,  "  don't  bother. 
You  women  always  think  things  can  be  re 
constructed,  patched  up,  pieced  on  again. 
They  can't.  I  am  simply  a  confirmed 
bachelor  devoted  to  Arable  Land.  I  have 
wedded  a  lost  cause.  It's  a  doge  and  Adri 
atic  business.  But  Bess!  she's  the  min 
iature  I  carry  in  my  pocket,  to  take  out, 
once  in  a  while,  when  my  lawful  spouse 

6  8l 


JUDGMENT 

isn't  looking.  Good  -night,  dear  lady. 
Keep  my  secrets.  By  -  the  -  way—  He 
turned  back  to  her.  Humor  was  in  his 
eye.  "What  a  hard  old  brick  your  hus 
band  is!"  He  said  it  wajmly,  and  her  own 
heart  leaped  to  meet  the  word.  "  I  don't 
know  another  soul  honest  enough  to  tell  a 
fellow  he's  the  son  of  a  scurvy  knave,  and 
then  propose  this  orchid  scheme  to  him, 
because  he  thinks  the  fellow's  got  the  dash 
to  carry  it  through.  I'm  not  good  enough 
for  his  daughter;  but  he  likes  my  pluck, 
and  he's  absolutely  unconscious  of  ever 
having  hurt  me.  He  adores  the  harrow 
—justice.  He  thinks  the  toad  adores  it, 
too." 

Helen  put  a  detaining  hand  upon  his  arm. 

"Have  you  told  him?"  she  ventured. 
"  Does  he  know  you  are  paying  them 
back?" 

"Bless  you,  no!  That's  where  my  ob 
stinacy  comes  in.  I  haven't  curried  fa 


vor." 


82 


JUDGMENT 

"I  must  tell  Bess!"  She  spoke  firmly, 
with  some  apprehension  of  being  with 
stood. 

"No,  you  won't  tell  anybody.  That's 
the  beauty  of  you.  I've  asked  you  not  to. 
Bess!  She's  the  last  person.  I  couldn't 
give  her  a  crust." 

"  If  she  cares  for  you,  she'll  wait." 

"Wait!  I  should  be  Methuselah,  my 
shoe-strings  blowing  into  my  eyes.  And 
perhaps — perhaps  she  never  cared." 

He  ran  down-stairs,  and  she  heard  the 
door  bang  behind  him.  The  sleepy  maid 
came  in  to  turn  off  the  lights,  and  Helen 
went  to  her  own  room,  refusing  further 
tendance.  There  she  looked  at  her  bed 
as  the  last  place  likely  to  interest  her. 
She  was  keyed  to  an  amazing  pitch,  and 
life  seemed  too  precious  to  be  spent  in 
sleep. 

The  remnant  of  the  night  ran  quickly, 
broken  by  nightmares  like  forebodings, 
and  morning  found  her  hungry  for  its  face. 

83 


JUDGMENT 

While  she  dressed  she  had  a  servant  tele 
phone  the  house  at  Woodside.  There  was 
no  response,  and,  with  visions  of  an  inhos 
pitable  country  hearth,  she  went  herself 
to  call  up  Rosamond  and  forbid  her  going. 
Briggs  answered  at  the  telephone. 

"She  has  gone,  Mrs.  Markham.  She 
took  the  early  train." 

"Gone  to  Woodside!"  repeated  Helen. 
"Did  she  go  alone?" 

"A  person  called  for  her,"  returned  the 
man.  "  I  didn't  catch  the  name — " 

"Find  out.  Find  out!"  cried  Helen, 
fiercely,  in  unreasoning  certainty;  and  the 
voice  came  back: 

"A  Mrs.  Harding,  ma'am.  A  Mrs.  Har 
ding." 


IV 


HELEN  turned  away  from  the  tele 
phone,  and  called  for  her  out-door 
wraps.  The  maid  who  brought  them, 
startled  by  her  face,  reminded  her  of 
breakfast.  That  fact  of  concrete  living 
steadied  her;  she  dropped  her  cloak,  and, 
pinning  her  hat  on  as  she  went,  hurried 
into  the  dining-room.  There  to  the  ac 
companiment  of  an  open  fire,  with  its  com 
plex  messages,  peace  awaited  her.  The 
room  had  that  subtle  air  of  serene  living 
due  to  careful  service.  The  table  was  ex 
quisitely  prepared  with  an  access  of  de 
votion  by  servants  who  wrought  for  her 
the  more  religiously  while  John  Markham 
was  away  because  they  knew  she  pined  a 
little.  None  of  the  slighter  accessories  had 

85 


JUDGMENT 

been  forgotten ;  there  were  flowers,  and  the 
morning  paper  lay  beside  her  plate.  But 
to  Helen,  in  her  present  haste,  none  of  the 
uses  of  life  were  more  than  the  garments 
covering  life  itself.  She  hardly  noted  the 
sweet  invitingness  of  the  room,  but  poured 
herself  a  cup  of  coffee  and  drank  it  hastily. 
The  maid,  in  a  deferent  concern,  brought 
her  the  rolls,  and  then  ventured: 

"Mrs.  Markham,  you  must  eat." 

Helen  thanked  her. 

"Call  a  carriage,  Lydia,"  said  she. 
"Yes,  I'll  eat.  Don't  be  worried." 

When  the  carriage  came,  Helen  was 
cloaked  and  ready,  and  sufficiently  alive 
to  present  fact  to  note  the  anxious  query 
in  the  woman's  face. 

"I  am  going  to  Woodside,  Lydia,"  said 
she.  "  Miss  March  has  run  down  to  open 
the  house.  We  shall  be  back  to-night. 
Tell  Miss  Elizabeth." 

Half-way  down  the  stairs  she  paused, 
with  a  thought  of  the  letters  where  she 
86 


JUDGMENT 

had  left  them  in  the  table-drawer.  They 
distracted  her;  she  had  no  use  for  them; 
yet,  afraid  to  trust  them  to  unfriendly 
circumstance,  she  ran  back,  unlocked  the 
drawer,  thrust  them  unwillingly  into  a 
little  bag,  and  slung  it  on  her  wrist.  She 
hurried  down  again,  and  the  woman  open 
ed  the  door  for  her.  A  gust  of  sleet  struck 
them  in  the  face.  This  was  a  storm!— 
winter  in  the  midst  of  spring.  It  seemed 
like  a  new  battle  to  fight;  but  presently 
Helen  began  to  feel  the  calmness  born  of 
movement  after  pure  foreboding.  The 
fact  that  Rosamond  and  Jane  Harding 
were  together  in  dangerous  solitude  was 
one  to  be  met,  not  to  be  shuddered  at; 
she  must  simply  follow,  to  avert  un 
hindered  conclaves — and  she  was  follow 
ing. 

The  road  to  Woodside,  after  it  passes 
the  city  limits  and  a  line  of  dirty  suburb, 
runs  through  marshes  of  great  amplitude. 
To  Helen,  the  journey  had  always  been 

87 


JUDGMENT 

a  progress  full  of  wonder  upon  wonder. 
Short  as  it  was,  it  healed  her  spirit,  as 
sojourns  do  in  foreign  lands,  or  calm  sea 
voyages.  From  these  salt  plains  she  drew 
some  nourishment,  through  a  sense  be 
yond  the  sight.  She  had  been  born  near 
the  sea,  and  perhaps  young  vigor  wakened 
in  her  at  the  portals  of  its  look  and  smell ; 
however  it  was,  they  heartened  her.  To 
day  she  longed  for  the  marshes,  and,  ig 
noring  the  earful  of  travellers,  kept  her 
glance  upon  the  outer  day,  to  suck  sus 
tenance  from  it  as  of  old.  But  the  storm 
refused  her  that  communion.  The  sleet, 
riding  like  dust  upon  a  mastering  wind, 
hid  the  world  away,  and  she  tried  vainly 
to  reach  out  even  the  hand  of  memory  to 
touch  her  marshes  as  they  used  to  be, 
warm  under  sunset  skies,  with  rose  lagoons 
and  creeping  tides.  It  was  like  the  with 
holding  of  a  much-loved  face;  and  when 
she  reached  the  little  station  she  was 
keyed  to  prescience  of  a  moment  she  must 
88 


JUDGMENT 

dominate  alone,  without  the  aid  of  her 
familiar  guardians. 

There  was  no  carriage  at  Woodside.  A 
ramshackle  carryall  was  accustomed  to 
rattle  up  from  the  village  intermittently 
in  winter  weather,  and  she  searched  the 
snowy  highway  for  it.  The  station-mas 
ter,  plunging  about  in  the  oilskin  and 
sou'wester  that  disclosed  him  as  he  was, 
a  fisherman  sacrificed  to  inland  life,  ex 
plained  that  the  carryall  had  been  there, 
but  had  gone  down  to  the  Place  to  take 
Rosamond  March. 

Woodside  was  unspoiled.  It  delighted 
in  Christian  names,  and  used  them  gen 
erously. 

"  Was  Miss  March  alone?"  asked  Helen. 
She  wrapped  her  cloak  about  her,  prepared 
to  struggle  with  the  gusts. 

"  No,  there  was  another  woman — one  o' 
the  help,  I  guess.  Mother  in  Israel!  you 
don't  say  you're  goin'  to  walk?" 

"I  mustn't  wait!"  she  called  back, 
89 


JUDGMENT 

piercingly.  "The  storm  won't  hurt  me — 
nor  the  snow." 

'This  wind  11  cut  ye  like  a  knife" — 
she  heard  the  voice  come  warning  after 
her— "down  on  the  cassy—- 

The  cassy,  in  the  local  speech,  was  the 
causeway  connecting  inland  Woodside 
with  the  Place,  John  Markham's  summer 
home.  His  house  looked  towards  the  east. 
Behind  it  was  a  smooth  extension  of  the 
harbor,  and  fronting  it  the  sea. 

Helen  took  the  road  impetuously.  She 
put  down  her  head,  and  felt  herself,  like 
a  cleaving  prow,  pushing  the  air  and  part 
ing  it.  She  was  clipper  -  built,  but  her 
cloak  flew  back,  fluttering  distressfully, 
and  when  she  raised  her  head  for  breath 
the  sleet  was  cruel  to  her.  She  took  the 
causeway  at  a  struggling  run.  The  snow 
threw  gauntlets  in  her  face,  the  sea-wind 
battled  her,  and  little  waves  curled  over 
the  parapet  to  crowd  her  inland.  She  had 
never  seen  the  tide  so  high,  though  mem- 
90 


JUDGMENT 

ory,  that  seemed  to  come  in  gusts  now  like 
the  wind,  recalled  old  tales  of  a  day  before 
the  causeway  had  been  built,  when  Wood- 
side,  in  angry  times,  had  been  an  island. 
Beyond  the  causeway  the  road  curved 
slightly  and  eased  her  from  the  wind,  and 
presently  she  toiled  into  the  orchard- 
ground  of  Woodside  Place.  No  other  spot 
on  the  New  England  coast  had  equal 
beauty,  because  Woodside  was  a  miracle 
of  trees.  There  were  orchards  of  great 
ancientry  and  groves  of  evergreen.  The 
apple-trees  were  twisted,  their  faces  turned 
one  way  from  long  submission  to  the  wind; 
but  they  had  obstinate  vigor.  Faithful  to 
the  seasons,  under  all  calamity,  they  bore 
bloom  and  ripened  fruit,  and  lent  the  spot 
the  double  enchantment  of  moving  leaves 
under  the  tang  of  salt  sea-air.  To-day,  con 
stant  in  their  old  associations,  they  were 
friends.  The  marshes  had  failed  her;  the 
trees,  in  a  more  humble  fashion,  kept  the 
tryst  of  memory. 


JUDGMENT 

The  house,  the  great  comfortable  creat 
ure  she  had  known  in  happy  intimacy, 
loomed  darkly  through  the  snow;  its  yel 
low  walls  looked  dim  to  her.  It  was  her 
husband's  treasure,  his  delight;  he  had 
built  it  for  their  dual  use,  and  she  sobbed 
stumbling  up  the  steps,  to  feel  the  nearer 
him.  She  opened  the  great  front  door  and 
stepped  in,  the  wind  with  her  in  an  on 
slaught  that  tore  at  curtains  and  blew  the 
ashes  on  the  hearth.  There  in  the  hall 
was  Hannah,  toiling  under  wood,  kindling, 
and  pine-cones. 

"The  Lord  above!"  remarked  the  wom 
an.  "Ain't  this  the  cr owner?" 

Hannah  was  a  short,  square  body  of 
great  strength,  who  loved  the  world  and 
all  the  uses  of  it.  To  kindle  a  fire  like 
this,  in  haste,  was  like  a  swift  adventure 
to  her;  she  loved  to  cook,  and  tend  the 
sick,  and  because  she  was  strong  all  ser 
vice  seemed  to  her  like  play.  She  had  a 
tanned  face  with  high  cheek-bones,  of  the 
92 


JUDGMENT 

aboriginal  type,  and  two  rows  of  white, 
firm  teeth.  Her  hair  was  gray,  and  her 
dark  eyes  held  glints  of  satire.  Hannah 
put  down  the  wood -basket  and  offered 
Helen  a  hand  in  equal  clasp. 

"  What  set  you  out  to  come  down  here," 
she  inquired,  "such  a  day  as  this?" 

Helen  laid  both  her  cold  hands  about 
that  stronger  one,  and  gained  some  com 
fort  from  it.  The  question  was  ready  on 
her  lips. 

"Have  they  come?" 

1 '  Rosamond  March  ?  Yes .  She  brought 
down  that  woman  that  used  to  have  the 
class — but  there,  you  know.  Rosamond's 
as  wild  as  a  hawk.  Never  see  such  a 
storm,  she  said.  Nothin'  would  do  but 
she  must  climb  up  over  the  cliff  an'  watch 
the  waves  come  in.  I  told  her  she  couldn't 
see  her  hand  afore  her  face;  but  there! 
I've  started  up  a  fire  in  the  furnace.  In 
half  an  hour  it  '11  take  some  holt.  You 
come  in  the  kitchen — " 

93 


JUDGMENT 

"Where  is  Sam?" 

"  Sam's  been  called  to  Portland  to  see 
that  brother  o'  his  that  has  the  pip  reg'lar 
as  the  spring  comes  round,  an'  then  goes 
marchin'  up  May  Hill,  and  has  it  all  over 
ag'in  next  year." 

"Are  you  alone,  Hannah?" 

"Law,  yes!  I  admire  to  be.  I  can  feed 
the  critters,  can't  I  ?  Sam  took  both 
hosses  up  to  the  stable  afore  he  went. 
Your  husband  said  he  could,  if  'twas  more 
convenient.  Where  you  goin'  ?" 

Helen  was  at  the  door. 

"I'm  going  to  find  Miss  Rosamond. 
Get  up  your  fires,  Hannah.  We'll  be 
back."  She  was  out  in  the  storm  again, 
and  Hannah,  her  mouth  agape  with  in 
terrupted  news,  closed  the  door  behind 
her. 

Then  the  woman,  merry  over  the  influx 
of  new  life,   went   off  to  light  her  fires. 
Excitement  seldom  blew  this  way  in  win 
try  weather;  she  adored  it. 
94 


THEY   WERE    LOOKING   DOWN   INTO  THE   VOID   BELOW 

THEM" 


JUDGMENT 

Helen  took  the  bleak  path  over  the  hill 
to  the  cliff  defending  Woodside  from  the 
outer  sea.  Long  before  she  reached  them, 
she  guessed  out  the  two  figures  through 
the  snow ;  they  were  looking  down  into  the 
void  below  them,  pondering  over  it;  the 
surge  was  only  a  voice  now,  wallowing 
there  in  its  own  clamor.  Until  she  came 
upon  them,  they  were  not  aware  of  her. 

"Rosamond!"  she  called.  "Rosa 
mond!" 

The  girl  turned  upon  her  a  cold-nipped 
face.  Even  in  that  spent  moment  Helen 
told  herself  it  was  an  untroubled  gaze. 
Jane  Harding,  there  beside  her,  was  a 
monolith  in  black.  She  had  tied  a  veil 
over  her  hat,  and  her  clothes  seemed  to  be 
wrapped  about  her  by  the  storm  concur 
rent  with  her  self-enfolding  will.  Rosa 
mond's  hands  were  upon  Helen's  shoul 
ders.  She  was  calling  to  her: 

"We  came  to  see  the  waves,  but  there 
aren't  any.  There  isn't  any  sea.  Only  a 

95 


JUDGMENT 

noise!  They're  drowning  in  a  great  white 
gulf  there.  But  hear  them  thunder !  Hear 
them  boom!"  She  was  ecstatic  after  her 
imprisonment  in  the  house  and  the  routine, 
of  the  sick-room. 

Jane  Harding  had  turned  with  no  sur 
prise,  and  now  she  stood  awaiting,  in  a 
civil  fashion,  the  signal  of  their  move 
ments.  In  the  midst  of  this  hurly-burly 
she  suggested  a  strange  stillness,  like  that 
of  things  inanimate.  She  was  not,  Helen 
realized,  in  a  maze,  the  creature  anticipa 
tion  had  so  clothed  in  terrors;  now,  face 
to  face,  she  was  bewildering  in  her  sim 
plicity,  a  practical  person  of  commonplace 
demeanor.  Yet  she  was  a  fact. 

"  Come  down!"  called  Helen,  in  re 
sponse.  "  We  shall  get  our  deaths  here. 
Come!" 

They  left  the  voices  crying  in  the  gulf, 

and   the   wind    swept   them   home.     The 

fire  in  the  hall  had  been  heaped  high  with 

logs  that  tested  even  Hannah's  strength. 

96 


JUDGMENT 

Helen,  with  her  instinct  of  courtesy,  turned 
to  Jane  Harding,  the  unfamiliar  guest. 

"  Take  off  your  things, ' '  she  said.  "  Come 
to  the  fire." 

Jane  Harding,  apparently  unmoved  by 
winter  weather,  untied  her  hat,  and  began 
unbuttoning  her  jacket  with  steady  hands. 

"  Thank  you,"  she  said.  "  I  will  remain 
a  spell." 

They  sat  down  beside  the  hearth,  and 
Hannah  brought  them  steaming  lemon 
ade.  Rosamond's  tongue  ran  fast.  She 
looked  like  the  spirit  of  the  storm,  ani 
mated  through  its  wildness  and  untouched 
by  chill.  She  sipped  the  hot  drink,  and 
Hannah  chuckled  to  herself  and  urged  the 
fire. 

"  I  can't  imagine  why  we  don't  come 
down  in  February,"  said  Rosamond. 
"Why  not  in  January?  Why  don't  we 
stay  right  through?"  The  delicate  bloom 
of  her  cheeks  had  hardened  into  red.  The 
sleet,  melting  on  her  yellow  hair,  curled  it 
7  97 


JUDGMENT 

the  tighter.  "A  day  like  this  takes  ten 
years  off  you  in  ten  minutes.'' 

"How  old  are  you  now?"  asked  Helen, 
in  a  wistful  fondness.  "  Eight?" 

"Ten,  at  the  most,  dear,  on  a  day  like 
this.  Hannah,  what  a  great  old  fire! 
Mrs.  Harding,  you're  not  drinking!" 

The  goblet  stood  untasted  on  a  table  at 
the  woman's  hand.  Immediately  Helen 
knew  why.  Jane  Harding  would  accept 
neither  bite  nor  sup  from  the  creditors 
who  were  yet  to  pay  her  those  just  dues. 

"Won't  you  have  a  cup  of  tea?"  sug 
gested  Helen,  in  her  untired  solicitude. 
"Hannah  will  make  it  for  you." 

"  I  am  not  accustomed  to  take  anything 
this  time  of  the  day,"  returned  the  wom 
an,  in  a  stiff  denial  disproportioned  to  the 
circumstance ;  it  sounded  like  an  article  of 
faith. 

"It  was  so  good  of  you  to  come!"  said 
Rosamond,  including  the  alien  in  her  joy. 
"  But  you,  Mrs.  Markham,  weren't  you  a 


JUDGMENT 

dear  to  follow  after!  What  do  you  think 
mamma  said?  She  was  in  great  shape 
when  I  left,  greedy  as  possible  for  me  to 
get  some  fun  out  of  it.  I  might  stay  all 
night,  if  I  liked.  I  suspected  her,  then. 
'  You  didn't  want  me  to  run  down  to  open 
Mrs.  Markham's  house,'  I  said.  'You 
wanted  me  to  have  a  lark.' ' 

"I  thought  of  that  myself,"  owned 
Helen.  "  But  we  won't  stay  all  night. 
We're  better  off  in  town,  in  storms  like 
this." 

"It's  a  well-built  house,"  said  Jane 
Harding,  quietly.  "  There's  a  cellar  un 
derneath.  It's  likely  to  be  warm." 

Rosamond  raised  her  brows  and  pursed 
her  lips. 

"  Let's  stay  all  night!"  she  coaxed. 

Helen  rose  conclusively ;  she  was  warmed 
at  the  surface,  but  her  veins  ran  chill. 

"  Hannah,"  said  she,  "we'll  go  over  the 
rooms  now.  I  may  suggest  some  changes 
for  Mrs.  March's  coming.  No,  Rosamond, 

99 


JUDGMENT 

no.  We  won't  spend  the  night.  You 
don't  want  to  leave  your  mother,  child; 
she's  sick  in  bed." 

Rosamond  looked  wilful,  in  her  smiling 
way. 

"  It  isn't  like  an  ordinary  illness,  dear. 
Mamma  was  as  game  as  you  please  this 
morning.  'What's  breaking  a  hip?"  she 
said.  'You  never  would  have  been  so 
frightened  if  I  hadn't  ventured  to  get  up 
a  touch  of  fever.'  And  it's  true,  you 
know.  She's  all  right,  bless  her,  only 
bored!  Oh,  let's  stay  all  night!" 

Helen's  gentleness  pitted  itself  against 
that  laughing  will.  "  Now,  Hannah," 
she  said.  "  Mrs.  Harding,  you  will  excuse 
us,  won't  you,  while  we  do  these  necessary 
things  ?  You  will  find  a  lot  of  books  there 
in  the  library.  Come,  Rosamond." 

But  half-way  up  the  stairs,  with  Rosa 
mond  and  Hannah,  she  turned  to  find  Jane 
Harding  following  them. 

"  I  should  be  pleased  to  go  over  the 
100 


JUDGMENT 

house, "  said  Mrs.  Harding,  in  a  decent 
gravity  no  one  could  resent.  "  I  haven't 
seen  it  since  I  used  to  come  here  to  sew." 

Helen  opened  her  lips  in  quick  denial, 
and  then  closed  them  and  went  on.  It 
was  evident  to  her  that  as  she  did  not  in 
tend  to  leave  Jane  Harding  alone  with 
Rosamond,  so  the  woman  did  not  propose 
leaving  Rosamond  alone  with  her. 

They  made  slow  progress  through  the 
rooms,  where  new  heat  was  softening  the 
winter's  chill,  Helen  giving  desultory  di 
rections,  as  needless  as  their  visit  here. 
Hannah  knew  her  business.  At  a  day's 
notice  she  could  slip  the  house  into  its 
holiday  dress,  and  she  heard  superfluous 
counsel  now  with  a  cheerful  calm,  the 
depths  of  her  mind  quite  unmoved  by  the 
necessity  for  remembering  it.  The  silent 
figure  followed,  until  Helen,  nervous  under 
tension,  cut  the  conclave  short. 
.  "  That's  all,  Hannah, ' '  she  said.  "  Come, 
Rosamond!"  A  courteous  thought  con- 
101 


JUDGMENT 

strained  her.  "Come,  Mrs.  Harding!"  she 
added,  the  more  gently  because  her  mind 
revolted.  "  Come  down  by  the  fire.  Han 
nah,  give  us  an  early  dinner — eggs,  any 
thing  you  like.  We'll  telephone  the  sta 
tion  for  a  carriage,  and  get  off  at  three." 

Then  like  a  continued  dream  they  were 
again  sitting  before  the  fire  in  the  enforced 
intimacy  of  a  country-house  when  doors 
are  closed  by  storm,  and  there  is  one  world 
within  and  an  alien  one  outside,  not  to  be 
penetrated.  Jane  Harding  sat  rigidly  up 
right  in  her  chair;  she  was  a  compendium 
of  all  properties.  Her  calm  assaulted  Hel 
en  like  a  challenge.  It  became  at  once 
imperative  to  change  that  rigorous  atti 
tude  to  normal  uses,  lest  it  break  out  in 
clamor.  She  went  into  the  library,  and 
came  back  presently  with  a  book  rich  in 
colored  plates. 

"Here  is  the  Flora  of  Brazil"  said  she. 
"  Wouldn't  you  like  to  look  it  over?" 

Mrs.  Harding,  masking  her  desires,  took 

102 


JUDGMENT 

the  book  but  coldly ;  there  was  no  lure  too 
small  to  wake  suspicion  in  her.  But  with 
the  turning  of  a  page  she  was  lost;  mania 
hurried  her,  hot -foot,  off  to  the  land  of 
heart's  desire.  Rosamond  got  up,  drowsy 
with  the  warmth  and  her  early  rising,  and 
opened  the  piano  in  the  library. 

"Do  you  mind?"  she  asked,  and  Hel 
en  shook  her  head.  Hannah,  at  the  first 
notes,  came  from  the  kitchen  to  announce, 
whole-heartedly : 

"It  was  tuned  last  week."  And  then 
the  girl  began  to  play. 

Helen  sat  and  watched  Jane  Harding. 
She  wondered  what  the  music  meant  to  her. 
It  evidently  meant  nothing  save,  perhaps, 
an  accompaniment  to  her  breathless  rov 
ing  in  Brazil.  She  was  absorbed.  A  slow 
red  stole  into  her  dry  cheeks,  and  her  hand 
was  eager  upon  the  turning  page.  She 
held  the  book  as  if  she  loved  it ;  and  yet  it 
was  not  that  she  loved.  It  was  her  own 
vicarious  wandering. 

103 


JUDGMENT 

Rosamond  blurred  through  snatches  of 
English  ballads,  and  then,  challenged  by 
the  fighting  day  without,  struck  into  the 
"  Fire  Charm/'  She  had  some  mastery  of 
music,  and  the  spirit  of  this  compelling 
thing  awoke  and  answered  her.  The 
potency  of  it  roused  Helen  to  responsive 
clamor  of  the  nerves  that  call  to  action. 
Life  was  at  once  heroic,  peopled  by  gods 
who  make  sad  abnegation  and  yet  triumph 
because  they  have  the  blood  of  gods,  and 
of  mortals  who  are  not  denied  the  ever 
lasting  roads.  At  that  moment  there  was 
slight  difference  between  the  two:  gods 
and  men  were  mingled  on  immortal  fields, 
or  earthly  grounds  destined,  through  com 
bat,  to  become  immortal.  Ardency  awoke 
in  her  to  be  faithful  to  great  appeals,  and 
to  summon  souls  she  loved  to  share  that 
loyalty.  For  no  reason  she  could  formu 
late,  she  took  the  package  of  letters  from 
the  bag  depending  from  her  wrist,  where 
they  had  hung  like  lead,  and  slipped  the 
104 


ROSAMOND    BLURRED    THROUGH    SNATCHES    OF    ENG 
LISH   BALLADS" 


JUDGMENT 

string.  At  the  sound,  Jane  Harding's 
eyes  forsook  the  page.  The  sight  recalled 
her,  even  from  Brazil. 

"What  you  going  to  do?"  she  asked,  in 
a  swift,  natural  elision. 

Helen  had  unfolded  one  of  the  sheets 
and  dropped  it  on  the  fire.  She  did  not 
answer.  Then  she  slipped  another  from 
the  pile  and  laid  it  also  there.  The  words 
still  quivered  on  brown  pages  as  if,  through 
wilful  malice,  they  defied  the  flame. 

"I  don't  know  why  I'm  doing  it,"  said 
Helen,  suddenly,  rousing  herself  and  burn 
ing  another  letter.  "I  don't  want  such 
things  to  live.  They  mean  wrong  and 
cruelty:  the  wrong  of  other  people — your 
cruelty." 

"Well,"  said  the  woman,  briefly, 
"they're  only  copies." 

"No  matter.  They  are  better  out  of 
the  world." 

The  "Fire  Charm"  was  weaving  tow 
ards  its  end,  full  of  little  cleansing  flames 

105 


JUDGMENT 

in  stern  yet  merciful  encircling.  Helen, 
with  her  inward  eye,  saw  the  scene  as  she 
had  a  hundred  times :  the  Valkyr  prostrate, 
strength  in  expiation,  the  fire  rippling  on 
and  rising  in  obedience  to  inexorable  will. 
Jane  Harding  also  turned  her  head  and 
listened  momentarily.  This  had  but  thrust 
her  mind  into  another  path  of  thwarted 
longing. 

"I  got  Lindy  an  instrument,"  she  said. 
"She  wouldn't  learn.  I  kept  her  at  it." 
The  futility  of  setting  the  tools  of  life  in 
motion  seemed  to  strike  her  then,  and  her 
mouth  worked  meagrely. 

Helen  laid  the  last  of  the  letters  on  the 
fire. 

"  I  thought  maybe  you'd  want  to  show 
'em,"  said  Jane  Harding,  in  practical  re 
minder.  "You  might  read  some  of  'em 
to  your  daughter,  or  to  Rosamond's 
mother." 

Helen  was  studying  her  in  a  wistful  un 
belief ;  something  imploring  was  in  it  also, 
1 06 


JUDGMENT 

as  if  she  begged  the  woman's  angel  to 
come  forth  and  show  itself. 

"Well,  I've  got  the  ones  these  were 
copied  from,"  added  Mrs.  Harding.  "I 
could  show  'em  to  her."  She  nodded 
towards  the  room  where  the  "  Fire  Charm," 
returned  upon  itself,  through  cunning  evo 
lution,  was  again  beginning.  "  I  could  do 
that  any  minute." 

"Have  you  brought  those  letters  with 
you?"  At  once  Helen's  eyes  sought  a 
black  bag  on  the  floor.  Now  she  remem 
bered  that  the  woman  had  been  carrying 
it  on  the  way  down  from  the  cliff;  she 
had  taken  it  up-stairs  with  her.  It  had 
not  left  her  hand. 

"  No,  they're  not  in  there.  That's  crack 
ers." 

"Crackers?" 

"  I  brought  my  luncheon.  You  didn't 
think  I'd  eat  here,  did  you?  I  pay  my 
way." 

Yet  she  was  demanding  ten  thousand 
107 


JUDGMENT 

dollars.  Helen  thought,  with  an  unbeliev 
ing  awe,  of  crackers  and  that  adventurous 
will  in  combination. 

:<You  have  been  very  careful  of  the 
bag,"  she  said,  in  a  quick  logic  of  suspi 
cion. 

"I  like  to  keep  things  by  me." 

Helen  brooded,  and  the  woman  answer 
ed  her  unspoken  thought. 

"I'd  just  as  lieves  tell  you  where  the 
letters  are.  They're  on  me,  in  a  good 
stout  pocket.  There  they'll  stay,  unless 
they're  taken  off  my  dead  body." 

Hannah  crossed  the  hall,  carrying  a  log 
to  the  library  fire.  With  her  short  stature 
and  her  evident  strength,  she  looked  like 
an  unclassified  creature  born  to  do  tasks, 
gigantic  ones,  underground  or  where  nat 
ure  moves  in  rude,  cyclopean  ways.  Jane 
Harding's  eyes  followed  her.  Proud  sat 
isfaction  brightened  them. 

"She  couldn't  take  'em  off  of  me,"  she 
added.     "Nobody  could." 
108 


JUDGMENT 

The  music  ceased,  in  the  lulling  of  an 
acquiescent  will,  and  Rosamond  came 
back,  as  Hannah  paused  before  them  to 
announce  the  early  dinner.  Helen  rose. 

"Come,  Mrs.  Harding,"  she  said. 
"Come,  Rosamond." 

"I  am  much  obliged,"  returned  the 
woman.  Her  hand  lay  suggestively  on 
the  black  bag.  "  I  don't  eat  any  to  speak 
of  in  the  middle  of  the  day." 

:  *  You  must  eat .     Come . ' ' 

Jane  Harding  had  returned  to  her  book 
with  a  finality  befitting  a  greater  question. 
Helen  stood  for  a  moment  in  an  anxious 
urgency;  then  she  put  her  arm  through 
Rosamond's,  and  they  went  out  together. 
Rosamond's  face  was  puckered  whimsi 
cally;  her  chance  companion  piqued  her 
into  wonder.  She  had  met  merely  Kent's 
old  teacher.  She  had  found  a  mys 
tery. 

"Isn't  she  discouraging?"  she  ventured 
to  whisper  in  the  seclusion  of  the  dining- 
109 


JUDGMENT 

room.     "  She's  depleting.     She  seems  to 
sap  me,  somehow." 

"  Don't,  Rosamond!"  said  Helen,  sharp 
ly.  Jane  Harding  was  every  instant  grow 
ing  before  her  vision,  greatening  in  power, 
in  implacability  worse  than  malice.  She 
feared  the  woman's  ordinary  senses;  even 
that  small  whisper  might  be  heard,  and 
then  she  would  strike  Rosamond. 

"Why,  no,"  said  Rosamond,  wondering. 
"I  won't." 

Helen  roused  herself  to  talk,  and  Han 
nah,  in  her  homely  sufficiency,  helped  on 
the  moment.  She  had  evolved  a  good  din 
ner,  and  she  served  them  featly,  meantime 
rehearsing  the  annals  of  her  snowy  world. 

"  Sha'n't  I  take  her  in  a  cup  o'  tea?"  she 
asked,  nodding  towards  the  quarter  where 
Jane  Harding,  in  her  silence,  was  as  sig 
nificant,  in  some  strange  way,  as  if  she 
called  them  all  impartially. 

"  Yes,  Hannah,  yes,"  said  Helen.  "  Take 
her  a  tray." 

no 


JUDGMENT 

Hannah  brought  back  the  tray  un 
touched.  Her  face  disclosed  a  hopeless 
wonderment.  "  She  must  have  su'thin' 
by  her,"  she  said,  briefly.  "  She's  all  over 
crumbs." 

Then  the  talk  faltered,  none  of  them 
knew  why,  and  presently  they  were  rising 
from  the  table.  Helen  summoned  back 
her  energies. 

"Now,  Hannah,"  she  said,  "telephone 
the  station  for  the  carryall.  Tell  them 
for  the  three-o'clock.  Promptly,  Hannah, 
without  fail." 

Hannah  was  a  long  time  about  it.  When 
she  came  back,  joy,  decently  suppressed, 
was  in  her  face. 

"I  can't  get  'em,"  said  she.  "I  can't 
get  anything.  No  wonder,  with  this  tem 
pest  blowin'.  The  wires  must  be  down. 
You'll  have  to  stay  all  night." 

"Rosamond,"  cried  Helen,  sharply,  "we 
must  walk." 

Rosamond  stood  by  the  fire,  poking  at 
in 


JUDGMENT 

it  with  an  impetuous  foot.  She,  too,  like 
Hannah,  was  on  the  side  of  the  storm;  but 
the  gravity  of  Helen's  face  constrained  her 
to  keep  silence.  Hannah  was  putting  on 
her  shawl  and  hood.  Helen  mutely  ques 
tioned  her. 

"I'll  go  an'  take  a  look  at  the  cas- 
sy,"  said  the  woman.  "  Unless  I  miss  my 
guess,  you  won't  step  foot  on  it  this  night. 
The  waves  are  breakin'  over  the  road  now, 
I'll  warrant  ye." 

Rosamond's  young  blood  awoke.  "  Let 
me!"  she  cried.  "  Oh,  Hannah,  let  me  go! 
Give  me  your  shawl.  Please,  Mrs.  Mark- 
ham!  I'll  be  back  in  no  time." 

She  bundled  herself  into  hood  and  shawl, 
a  laughing  caricature. 

"Go  out  at  the  side  door,"  said  Helen. 
"  Don't—"  She  was  about  to  add,  "  Don't 
let  her  see  you,"  but  she  suppressed  the 
impulse,  and  shook  herself  awake  again  to 
common-sense.  Yet  her  revolting  nerves 
warned  her  not  to  let  Jane  Harding  fol- 
112 


JUDGMENT 

low  Rosamond  again  into  that  bleak  sol 
itude. 

Rosamond  stepped  out  through  the  side 
door  into  the  storm. 

"She's  a  beauty,"  remarked  Hannah, 
admiringly,  picking  up  the  dishes.  "  Kent 
done  well  that  time.  'Most  as  well  as  his 
father  did  afore  him." 

Helen  waited  in  silence,  leaning  her  head 
against  the  pane.  It  was  impossible  to 
encounter  Jane  Harding  again,  with  the 
prospect  of  their  spending  a  night  to 
gether  under  the  same  roof ;  she  waited  for 
the  verdict,  and  watched  the  storm.  It 
had  risen,  if  that  could  be,  after  so  wild  a 
rout.  The  snow  was  harder  now  and  finer, 
tiny  frozen  pellets  that  besieged  the  win 
dows  and  threshed  the  orchard  trees.  A 
tragic  portent,  in  what  seemed  awful  near 
ness,  roared  and  boomed  the  sea. 

"Hannah,"  she  said  at  last,  out  of  her 
foreboding,  "do  you  think  something  is 
going  to  happen?" 


JUDGMENT 

Hannah  glanced  sharply  at  her  from 
under  knitted  brows. 

"  I  guess  what  '11  happen  to  you  '11  be 
a  cold  on  your  lungs,"  she  said,  practical 
ly.  "  You  better  not  stir  out  o'  this  house 
to-night.  I'll  soak  your  feet.  You  don't 
look  any  too  rugged  this  spring,  any 
ways." 

Helen  had  not  heard.  She  was  quiver 
ing  under  the  misery  of  homesickness. 

"You  need  cossetin',"  said  Hannah, 
tenderly.  "  When's  he  comin'  back?" 

Tears  sprang  to  Helen's  eyes,  out  of 
past  longing  grown  acutely  new. 

"  Soon,  Hannah,  soon,  I  hope,"  she  an 
swered,  softly.  But  the  mention  of  John 
Markham  soothed  her  nerves,  risen  in  that 
complex  rebellion. 

Rosamond  was  coming.  The  wind  had 
whipped  her  blood  into  a  gallop;  she 
seemed  to  bear  the  best  of  news.  Out 
side  the  window  she  saluted  Helen,  like  a 
soldier,  and  then  came  stamping  in. 
114 


JUDGMENT 

"I've  won!"  she  cried.  "We  don't  go 
home  to-night." 

Helen  had  paled.  The  blood  engulfed 
her  heart ;  her  vision  darkened. 

"  The  sea—"  she  faltered. 

"It's  simply  raging  over  the  footway. 
We  couldn't  do  it  even  if  we  drove.  But 
it's  all  right,  Mrs.  Markham.  Mother  '11 
know  the  reason.  Hannah,  here's  your 
shawl." 

Her  snowy  things  off,  she  turned  to  lay 
a  cheek  to  Helen's  in  a  laughing  triumph. 
Helen  had  pulled  her  energies  together. 

"Then  we'll  stay,"  she  said,  accepting 
destiny.  A  wan  smile  was  on  her  face. 
"  Hannah,  Miss  Rosamond  will  sleep  in 
my  room.  Give  Mrs.  Harding  the  east 
chamber. ' ' 

With  Rosamond's  hand  on  her  shoulder, 
the  girl  singing  a  marching-song,  she  went 
back  to  the  hall  fire  where  Jane  Harding 
was  absorbedly  copying  the  picture  of  a 
flower  on  a  piece  of  wrapping-paper.  At 


JUDGMENT 

that  a  vestige  of  some  wanner  hope  came 
upon  Helen. 

"So  you  can  draw,  Mrs.  Harding!"  she 
said,  involuntarily.  "That's  good.  That's 
splendid." 

"Some  things  I  can,"  responded  the 
woman,  in  an  obvious  pride,  but  without 
an  answering  glance.  "  I  can  draw  flow 
ers." 

They  left  her  at  her  task,  and  the  after 
noon  went  as  time  in  the  country  does 
under  a  darkened  sky.  Rosamond  was 
everywhere,  like  a  spirit.  She  played 
more  music ;  she  gossiped  with  Hannah  in 
the  kitchen,  and  even  made  candy  there, 
and  came  in  triumphant,  with  a  sticky 
plateful.  Then  it  was  supper -time,  and 
Helen  could  not  eat  because  Jane  Harding 
would  not;  and  Rosamond  went  to  the 
barn  with  Hannah,  to  "feed  the  critters." 
After  that  she  returned  to  the  library  fire 
where  Helen  was  hovering,  and  reported 
that  she  had  had  a  beautiful  time. 
116 


JUDGMENT 

"But  you've  had  a  horrid  one,"  she 
added,  in  a  swift  remorse.  She  took  the 
place  she  liked  at  Helen's  knee.  "  I  am  a 
selfish  pig.  I  shall  be  punished." 

"  Mrs.  Harding  must  come  in  here,"  said 
Helen.  Her  hand  was  on  Rosamond's 
hair  in  the  soft  pity  mothers  feel.  "  Ask 
her  to  come." 

Jane  Harding  had  heard,  and  before 
Rosamond  could  rise  she  had  appeared,  in 
her  noiseless  way,  and  melted  into  a  chair 
in  the  background. 

"  Come  nearer, ' '  said  Helen.  "  Draw  up, 
as  Hannah  says.  She  must  come,  too. 
We  must  be  sociable,  a  night  like  this. 
Where  is  Hannah?" 

" She's  got  'a  sight  o'  things  to  do,'" 
said  Rosamond,  drowsily.  She  rested  her 
head  on  Helen's  knee  and  mused  into  the 
fire.  "  Don't  you  hear  her  pounding  about 
overhead?  She  said  you  got  a  chill  this 
morning,  and  you'd  have  to  be  he't  up. 
There,  that's  a  shiver!  Are  you  cold?" 
117 


JUDGMENT 

Helen  was  cold  chiefly  from  within. 
Yet  she  moved  nearer  the  fire,  to  get  the 
brightness  of  it. 

"Are  you  quite  warm?"  she  turned  to 
ask  Jane  Harding. 

"I  am  very  comfortable,  I  thank  you," 
said  the  woman,  and  her  voice  sounded 
as  if  she  would  rather  not  be  comfortable, 
if,  by  privation,  she  might  purchase  her 
just  dues. 

The  storm  came  gustily  now,  in  sharp 
attack  and  specious  lulling;  it  was  silent 
only  to  be  heard  anew.  It  whipped  the 
pane,  and  the  nerves  answered  it.  Noth 
ing  was  continuous  but  the  roaring  of  the 
sea.  Yet  they  were  secure,  so  Rosamond 
thought,  within. 

"Let's  tell  stories,"  she  said,  dreamily. 
"  Let's  talk  about—  There  she  paused, 
remembering  the  alien  presence,  and  with 
a  note  of  vagrant  laughter  tried  again. 
"Let's  tell  a  continued  story.  I'll  begin. 
Once  there  was  a  prince.  He  had  nice 
118 


JUDGMENT 

brown  hair  and  a  cowlick  on  his  forehead." 
Whereupon  she  reflected  that  this  was 
Kent,  too  definitely  portrayed,  and,  to  the 
confusion  of  accuracy,  gave  him  blue  eyes 
instead  of  brown.  "  He  was  a  very  re 
markable  prince,  taller  than  anybody  else, 
straighter,  more  wonderful  every  way.  He 
was  very  sad  and  very  funny,  very  im 
patient  and  very  good-tempered—  Was 
he  good-tempered,  Mrs.  Markham?"  She 
shook  Helen's  knee  with  her  laughter,  and 
Helen,  constrained  by  her,  went  on. 

"  Yes,  he  was  really  good-tempered;  for 
when  he  was  upset  you  could  always  make 
him  smile  in  a  second.  The  right  person 
could." 

"  I  guess  she  can!"  said  Rosamond,  in 
advertently,  and  bit  her  lip. 

Helen  continued,  hastily.  She  was 
afraid;  yet  Jane  Harding  sat  quite  still,  a 
breathing  silence. 

"The  prince  lived  in  the  palace  for  a 
while.  Then  he  went  out  into  the  world, 
119 


JUDGMENT 

and  the  world  wasn't  the  sort  of  place  he 
hoped  it  was.  Some  of  the  kindest  things 
proved  to  be  cruel.  Some  of  the  prettiest 
ones  had  dust  on  them.  The  dust  rubbed 
off  and  smirched  him.  There  was  a  time 
when  he  didn't  look  like  a  prince.  He  was 
like  a  beggar." 

' '  How  strange  you  are ! ' '  Rosamond  sat 
up  and  stared  at  her  through  the  fire-shine. 
"  That  isn't  the  way  you  talk.  What  is  it, 
Mrs.  Markham?" 

Jane  Harding 's  voice  broke  upon  the 
pause  as  Helen,  starting  at  it,  found  she 
knew  it  would. 

"  I  can  play  that  game,"  said  the  wom 
an,  with  her  unmoved  civility.  "It's  my 
turn  now." 

Helen  thrust  Rosamond  away  from  her 
in  the  violence  of  her  responsive  move 
ment;  then  with  a  quick  compunction  she 
bent  and  laid  both  hands  upon  the  girl's 
shoulders,  as  if  to  guard  her. 

"No!"  she  said,  commandingly.  "No! 
120 


JUDGMENT 

I'll  finish.  I  said  he  looked  like  a  beggar. 
Rosamond,  he  was  a  beggar.  He  begged 
for  love,  and  what  seemed  love  betrayed 
him.  But  he  kept  on  seeking,  and  he 
found  the  one  person  who  was  to  give  it  to 
him.  She  was  the  only  one  he  wanted. 
For  remember,  Rosamond,  he  hadn't  had 
any  love ;  he  had  only  had  the  things  that 
look  like  it  and  are  not,  and  his  poor  heart 
was  all  torn  with  shame  and  trouble. ' '  The 
current  of  persuasion  failed  her.  "  Rosa 
mond,"  she  cried,  forgetting  the  other 
woman,  and  yet  urged  by  her  insistent 
presence,  "  don't  let  anything  separate  you 
from  what  you  love.  Remember,  life  is 
bigger  than  you  think.  There  are  sins, 
but  they  are  great  archangels  of  another 
sort  for  us  to  conquer.  Never  be  separated 
from  people,  never  forsake  them.  What 
is  it  in  the  Bible? — 'neither  death  nor  life 
.  .  .  nor  principalities  nor  powers- 
Violent  shuddering  laid  hold  on  her,  and 
Rosamond  sprang  up. 
121 


JUDGMENT 

"Hannah!"  she  cried,  sharply.  ''Han 
nah!  Mrs.  Harding,  turn  on  the  light!" 

While  Jane  Harding  was  groping  for  the 
key,  Hannah  came  swiftly  with  a  lamp. 

"  The  light  won't  work,"  said  she.  "  The 
storm  has  played  the  mischief  with  it. 
You  lamb,  what  is  it?"  She  set  down  the 
lamp,  and  hurried  over  to  Helen,  shaking 
in  Rosamond's  arms.  "  She's  got  a  chill," 
said  Hannah.  .  You  throw  that  fur  thing 
over  her,  an'  I'll  get  some  whiskey."  She 
came  back  instantly  with  a  smoking  tum 
bler,  and  Helen's  lips  bit  upon  it,  chat 
tering. 

She  smiled  up  into  Rosamond's  face. 

"I'm  not  cold,"  said  she.     "It's  only 


nerves." 


"  Nerves  or  not,  you  get  straight  into 
your  bed,"  said  Hannah.  "It's  as  warm 
as  toast.  There's  a  soapstone  to  the  foot. 
You  help  her,  Rosamond.  There!" 

Helen  had  risen ;  again  in  a  gust  of  will 
that  seemed  to  fit  the  storm,  she  got  her 
122 


JUDGMENT 

wavering  grip  on  circumstance.  But  bed 
seemed  to  her  merciful.  At  the  door  she 
paused. 

" Good-night,  Mrs.  Harding,"  she  said. 
"Hannah  will  show  you  to  your  room. 
She  will  give  you  some  of  my  night  things. ' ' 

11 1  sha'n't  need  anything  but  what  I 
have,"  returned  Jane  Harding.  She  was 
standing,  in  a  scrupulous  courtesy,  yet 
with  a  rigid  self-restraint  that  seemed  a 
challenge.  She  was  apparently  quite  un 
interested  in  the  moment,  but  her  eyes 
were  watchful. 

"  Good-night,"  said  Helen,  and  went  up 
the  stairs.  Jane  Harding  followed,  and 
Hannah,  in  passing,  briefly  indicated  her 
room.  The  guest  stepped  in  and  Helen 
heard  the  turning  of  the  key.  The  sound 
heartened  her,  and  in  her  own  big  chamber, 
where  she  was  to  be  with  Rosamond,  she 
laughed  from  an  incredulous  relief. 

"  Rosamond!"  said  she.     "  Rosamond!" 

"What,  Mrs.  Markham?" 
123 


JUDGMENT 

"  I  almost  think  we  may  get  home  safely, 
after  all!" 

"Get  home?  Of  course  we  shall  get 
home!"  said  Rosamond,  wondering. 
11  You're  not  timid  because  we're  just 
three  women  here  alone?" 

"No,  I'm  not  timid.  It  isn't  the  night 
or  the  place — the  dear  place — it's  the  pow 
ers  of  the  air.  Hear  Hannah  clanging  to 
the  doors  and  bolting  them!" 

She  began  undressing  slowly.  Her  gown 
laid  by  and  her  hair  sweeping,  she  stood 
before  the  fire  and  mused  a  moment,  her 
arms  stretched  out  before  her,  her  hands 
grasping  the  mantel.  The  sight  of  thern 
recalled  her  suddenly  to  John  Markham, 
because  he  loved  them.  She  flushed,  and 
felt  her  happiness. 

"Don't  get  chilled  again,"  urged  Rosa 
mond. 

"  No.  I  wonder  if  that  woman  truly 
has  some  night  things.  I  must  see." 

She  caught  her  own  night-gown  from 
124 


JUDGMENT 

the  bed,  and  crossed  the  closet  forming  a 
passage  between  the  rooms.  Jane  Har 
ding  's  door  was  slightly  open.  The  woman 
had  not  heeded  the  dark  closet;  from  her 
side  it  had  apparently  no  outlet.  Helen 
knocked  softly,  and  then,  unheard,  paused 
in  a  spasm  of  pity  for  the  lonely  figure 
there.  Jane  Harding  was  sitting  by  a 
light-stand,  where  she  had  put  the  lamp. 
She,  too,  had  taken  off  her  dress,  and  her 
gaunt  decency,  in  its  serviceable  cotton 
clothes,  struck  at  Helen's  heart  like  a  new 
moral  poverty. 

"May  I  come  in?"  she  called.  "I've 
brought  you— 

She  was  advancing,  in  a  sweet  defiance 
of  intrusion,  led,  perhaps,  by  some  desire 
to  offer  the  stranger  the  intimacy  of  their 
common  sex.  She  halted  sharply,  midway 
in  the  room.  Jane  Harding  was  busy,  and 
immediately  Helen  saw  what  occupied 
her.  A  packet  of  letters  lay  open  on 
her  lap.  She  was  assorting  them.  Three 


JUDGMENT 

were  on  the  table.  A  little  pile  was  on  one 
knee.  She  seemed  to  be  selecting  some 
for  special  purposes.  These  were  Kent's 
letters.  With  the  keenness  of  startled 
vision,  Helen  caught  his  hand  upon  the 
superscription.  She  even  noted  that  the 
envelopes  were  numbered,  as  if  certain 
ones  were  to  be  laid  aside.  This  was  a 
second's  thought.  In  that  second  Jane 
Harding  had  heard  her  voice  and,  look 
ing  up,  seen  her  advancing.  The  woman 
started,  a  clutching  hand  bent  on  gather 
ing  up  the  papers  at  a  grasp.  The  light- 
stand  went  over.  The  lamp  crashed  down 
and  shivered.  A  river  of  flame  followed 
the  spreading  oil  upon  the  matting,  and 
another  line  of  light  ran  up  the  woman's 
clothes.  Helen  fell  on  her  knees  and  be 
gan  twisting  up  Jane  Harding' s  skirt  and 
crushing  out  the  fire  in  her  hands. 

The  letters  were  everywhere,   and  the 
hurrying  flame  was  close  upon  them.    Jane 
Harding   stood   grasping  at  her  burning 
126 


JUDGMENT 

skirts,  wringing  them  as  if  she  wrung  fire 
out  of  them.  Even  in  the  heat  of  danger 
she  had  remembered  the  axioms  that  rule 
emergencies. 

"My  Lord!"  she  called  out,  piercingly. 
"Them  letters  are  in  the  fire!  Put  your 
foot  on  that  one  there!"  And  Helen  did 
it.  "You  let  me  be!"  cried  the  woman. 
"Put  it  out  where  'tis  on  the  floor.  Give 
me  that  piller." 

They  each  took  a  pillow  and  smothered 
the  thing  where  it  ran  towards  a  valanced 
bed. 

"Don't  call!"  whispered  Helen,  sharply. 
Rosamond !    We  must  save  Rosamond ! ' ' 

At  last  she  and  the  woman  had,  to  her 
mind,  the  common  cause  of  sparing  Rosa 
mond.  There  was  soothing  in  it.  Again 
she  felt  the  calm  responsive  to  an  urgent 
need.  Her  shadowy  fears  had  fused  into 
one  dread,  and  she  was  fighting  it.  This 
was  embodied  terror,  yet  it  was  nothing 
compared  with  the  soul-tremor  she  had 
127 


JUDGMENT 

felt  before.  And  the  "  Fire  Charm  "  went 
surging  through  her  memory. 

Jane  Harding  had  not  ceased  beating 
at  the  thing  where  it  ran  about  the  floor, 
and  Helen  alternately  fought  it  there,  and 
then  turned  back  to  strip  charred  shreds 
and  tatters  from  the  woman's  clothing. 
The  burning  river  reached  the  bed  and 
touched  it.  Helen  stooped  to  it;  her  own 
skirt  caught,  and  the  flames  had  her. 

"Don't  call!"  she  whispered,  with  the 
"Fire  Charm"  deafening  in  her  ears. 
"Don't  call  Rosamond!" 

In  a  flash  of  pain  her  senses  sickened. 
Suddenly  she  was  in  a  world  where  heat 
and  light  were  one  enemy,  and  the  thick 
air  choked  her.  Sensation  was  an  anguish. 
In  the  revolt  of  her  tortured  body  she  even 
forgot  Rosamond.  And  the  "  Fire  Charm  " 
rippled  into  sleep. 


V 


WHEN  Hannah  came  in  with  a  lamp 
to  offer  the  guest  some  possible  ser 
vice,  Helen  lay  on  one  of  the  two  little 
beds,  and  Jane  Harding  was  holding  her 
down,  with  blankets  over  her.  The  wom 
an  shuddered  from  head  to  foot.  In  a 
mechanical  zeal  she  drew  the  blankets 
tighter. 

"  I  guess  I've  killed  her,"  she  said,  con 
versationally. 

Then  Rosamond,  curious  over  Helen's 
delay,  came  idling  in.  She  gave  a  cry, 
and  ran  to  the  bedside.  Jane  Harding  was 
turning  slowly  about,  demanding  of  Han 
nah,  who  did  not  notice  her: 

"You  see  if  I'm  afire  anywheres." 

Hannah  cast  a  comprehensive  look  at 
9  129 


JUDGMENT 

the  charred  room,  and  set  down  her 
lamp.  Her  face  was  gray  under  its  sea- 
tan. 

"  She  has  burned  to  death!"  called  Rosa 
mond,  piercingly.  "She  is  dead." 

"  You  go  to  the  head  o'  the  sullar  stairs," 
said  Hannah  to  Jane  Harding.  "  Get  that 
can  of  olive-oil." 

Jane  Harding  turned  and  took  two 
steps.  Her  face  writhed,  and  she  stum 
bled.  Rosamond  cried  out  again : 

"Her  feet!  Her  feet!  Don't  you  see? 
She  is  burned,  too.  Where  is  it?  Let 
me  go."  As  she  spoke  she  ran,  and  in  a 
moment  she  was  back  again. 

Jane  Harding  crawled  into  the  nearest 
chair  and  set  her  teeth  upon  her  pain. 
Hannah  and  Rosamond  worked  together 
over  Helen,  with  delicate  touches  agoniz 
ing  to  their  own  sick  apprehension.  When 
they  had  finished  they  turned  to  Mrs. 
Harding.  She  met  their  glance. 

"No,"  she  said,  stolidly.  "I'll  do  up 
130 


JUDGMENT 

my  own  feet.  I've  got  to  wait  a  spell. 
You  let  me  be." 

Hannah  took  no  notice;  she  knelt  and 
began  her  ministration,  and  the  woman 
yielded  to  her.  Once  she  moaned  when 
a  hurt  touched  her  too  nearly,  and  at  that, 
or  summoned  by  the  pain  that  had  en 
gulfed  her,  Helen's  eyes  came  open.  She 
tried  to  grasp  at  Rosamond's  dress,  but 
both  her  hands  were  bandaged  and  their 
use  failed  her.  Her  eyes  besought  the  girl. 

"Rosamond,"  she  whispered,  " promise 


me." 


Rosamond  bent  to  her. 

"  Promise  not  to  leave  me.  Stay  here 
by  me.  Look  at  me.  Don't  look  at  any 
thing  else."  Her  own  inward  vision  was 
on  the  letters  as  she  had  seen  them  last. 

"Yes,  yes,"  said  Rosamond.     "I  prom 


ise." 


"But  perhaps  they  were  burned  up," 
wandered  Helen.  "  Rosamond,  were  they 
burned?" 


JUDGMENT 

"  What,  dearest— what  ?' ' 

"Never  mind,  child;  never  mind.  Stay 
hereby  me." 

"I'm  going  to  undress  you,"  said  Han 
nah  to  Jane  Harding,  "an'  git  you  into 
the  bed  in  t'other  room.  I  can  carry  ye." 

"  No,  no!"  cried  Helen.  "  Not  in  there! 
She  must  not  leave  this  room." 

"I  shall  set  here,"  said  Jane  Harding, 
immovably ;  but  Hannah  fell  upon  her  and 
stripped  her  clothes  away  from  her.  She 
was  the  stronger.  She  dropped  Helen's 
night-gown  over  the  woman's  shoulders, 
and  then  raised  her  and  laid  her  in  the 
other  bed.  Helen  was  holding  Rosa 
mond's  gaze  with  her  constraining  eyes. 

"  Promise!"  she  whispered. 

Rosamond  put  her  lips  to  Helen's 
cheek. 

"  Promise  you  won't  go  over  there  to 
her,  nor  listen  to  what  she  tells  you. 
Promise,  Rosamond!" 

"I  promise,"  said  the  girl  again.  To 
132 


JUDGMENT 

her  terrified  sense  this  was  only  a  sad  part 
of  pain's  deliritim. 

"You  pick  up  them  letters,"  said  Jane 
Harding  to  Hannah,  busy  with  the  broken 
glass. 

Rosamond  sprang  to  help,  but  Helen's 
cry  arrested  her: 

"Rosamond,  stay  here  with  me!" 

Then  Hannah  gathered  up  the  letters, 
and  Jane  Harding,  rising  on  her  elbow, 
watched,  to  keep  the  tally  of  them. 

"Tie  'em,"  the  woman  commanded. 
"There's  my  hair-string  on  the  bureau. 
Now  you  put  'em  under  my  pillow." 

Hannah  slipped  the  letters  under  the 
pillow,  and  the  woman  lay  back  and  closed 
her  eyes.  When  Hannah  left  the  room 
for  a  moment,  Rosamond  followed  and 
stayed  her  in  the  hall.  The  girl  had  the 
distended  eyes  of  fear. 

"She  will  die!"  she  shuddered.  "She 
will  die!  Hannah,  we  are  all  alone  here, 
and  we  can't  save  her." 


JUDGMENT 

"  We've  saved  her  so  fur,"  said  Hannah, 
grimly.  "  When  it's  daylight  I'll  git  that 
woman-doctor  over  beyond." 

"You  can't  cross  the  cassy." 

Hannah  left  the  words  unanswered,  and 
went  about  her  business  swiftly.  Rosa 
mond  stole  in  and  sat  down  by  Helen's 
bed.  The  room  had  suddenly  a  most 
solemn  look.  There  were  the  two  white 
beds,  and  the  two  bodies  on  them,  in 
unnatural  outline.  Once  or  twice  Helen 
moaned  a  little,  and  then  caught  herself 
to  silence;  but  Jane  Harding  lay  quite  still. 
Even  the  sound  of  her  breathing  had  been 
subdued  to  an  uncanny  blank.  Then 
Hannah  came  back,  and  all  night  she  went 
to  and  fro  in  a  merciful  tendance  which 
seemed  to  do  no  good.  Helen,  as  the 
hours  wore  on,  drifted  into  a  state  that,  to 
the  outward  eye,  was  a  delirium.  To  her, 
conscious  of  herself,  it  was  an  exaltation 
over  pain.  Her  bodily  hurts  stung  her  like 
an  ever-present  fire,  but  some  part  of  her 


JUDGMENT 

seemed  to  rise  and  float  suspended  in  the 
upper  air,  conscious  of  the  pangs  of  earth 
and  yet  victorious  over  them.  The  fire 
enwrapped  her  like  a  mantle,  but  the  "  Fire 
Charm"  sang  in  her  ears,  translating  pain 
into  pain's  angel.  It  told  her  why  the 
thing  had  happened.  Like  an  echo  of 
Elizabeth's  prophecy,  it  came  upon  her 
that  she  was  suffering  this  for  John  Mark- 
ham's  sake,  and  immediately  it  was  good 
to  her.  He  had  done  the  deeds  which  his 
bodily  eyes  urged  him  to  accomplish  for 
the  benefit  of  the  earthly  polity,  and  she  in 
the  body  expiated  them.  He  had  ignored 
the  great  counsellors  that  stand  above 
sense  to  bend  the  mortal  life  to  other  uses, 
and  she  was  the  vicarious  sacrifice,  to  bal 
ance  all  the  pain  attendant  on  his  word. 
The  body  did  not  seem  to  her  so  unim 
portant  as  it  had  sometimes.  It  was  the 
creature  standing  in  the  breach  and  allow 
ed,  most  mercifully,  to  do  the  will  of  souls. 
She  had  but  two  wishes  now:  to  save  her 


JUDGMENT 

husband  and  to  save  Rosamond,  and  pain 
seemed  to  be  the  road  by  which  she  trav 
elled.  The  girl  sat  beside  her,  a  figure  in 
pathetic  readiness,  like  one  who  stills  her 
breath  in  loving  dread. 

"  Rosamond!"  whispered  Helen,  from  an 
ebbing  wave  of  anguish. 

The  girl  bent  swiftly  over  her.  "  Drink 
this,  dear!"  she  implored.  "Drink  this!" 

"  No.     Rosamond,  I  may  not  live." 

"Yes,"  said  the  girl,  steadfastly;  "you 
will  live."  But  her  own  heart  constricted 
in  sad  confirmation. 

"  It  may  not  be  best.  We  must  wish 
for  what  is  best.  But  I  must  not  leave 
things  half  done.  Rosamond,  Kent  is 
coming."  The  words  failed  her,  and  her 
mind  floated.  That  still  figure  in  the  oth 
er  bed  seemed,  to  her  exalted  fancy,  to 
rise,  standing  between  hope  and  her.  She 
clung  to  her  purpose,  and  came  back. 
"The  powers  of  heaven  are  stronger  than 
the  powers  of  hell, ' '  she  murmured.  "  Rosa- 
136 


JUDGMENT 

mond,  we  must  face  sin — our  own  sin,  the 
sin  of  other  people.  We  must  not  let  it 
conquer  us." 

"No,"  said  the  girl,  with  the  same 
quietude,  risen  to  combat  pain's  delirium. 
"No." 

"Bend  lower,"  said  Helen.  "Listen." 
Helen  thought  the  figure  in  the  other  bed 
was  rising  on  its  elbow,  to  listen  also,  and 
her  whisper  was  almost  inaudible.  '  You 
will  forgive  him  anything?" 

"Yes,"  said  the  girl;  "yes!"  not  know 
ing  what  she  promised.  "  But  there  is 
nothing  to  forgive." 

"We  must  be  merciful,"  said  Helen. 
* '  Remember  that.  We  must  be  merciful. ' ' 

There  was  a  movement  from  the  other 
bed,  and  Rosamond  rose  instinctively  to 
answer  it.  But  Helen,  seeing  her,  cried 
out: 

"No,  no!     Stay  here  by  me!" 

Then  Hannah  came  and  gave  Jane  Har 
ding  water;  and  Rosamond  stayed. 
137 


JUDGMENT 

When  the  morning  broke,  the  storm  was 
over,  the  spring  sun  riding  in  a  windy 
sky.  The  world  glittered ;  the  only  sign  of 
what  had  gone  was  the  crying  of  the  sea. 
The  light  struck  too  opulently  into  white 
faces,  and  Rosamond,  with  the  signs  of  last 
night's  terror  still  about  her,  sat  by  Hel 
en's  bedside  and  served  her  when  she 
might.  Hannah,  without,  called  her,  and 
she  obeyed,  to  find  the  woman  blown  from 
the  wind,  with  wet  wisps  of  hair  across  her 
face,  hurrying  into  dry  clothes. 

"  I've  got  the  woman-doctor,"  said  Han 
nah.  "  They'll  bring  her  'round  t'other  side 
in  a  bo't.  An'  I've  had  'em  telephone 
Elizabeth." 

"How  did  you  cross  the  cassy?" 

"  I  don't  know.  Now  I'll  feed  the  crit 
ters." 

The   woman  -  doctor   came.       She   was 
young,  with  the  gray  hair  of  overwork- 
calm  in  the  possession  of  new  knowledge 
and  reverent  of  the  old  earth  legends  her 
138 


JUDGMENT 

country  birth  had  taught  her.  To  Helen 
this  was  another  ministering  spirit  which 
could  do  no  good.  Yet,  as  her  floating 
mind  assured  her,  when  she  could  arrest 
it  for  a  moment  in  its  strange  vibrations, 
nothing  mattered  while  Jane  Harding  lay, 
a  silent  outline,  staring  at  the  wall. 

With  the  next  train  came  down  Eliza 
beth.  Rosamond  looked  up  at  her,  with 
a  quiver  on  her  face,  and  then,  surrender 
ing  her  post,  crept  out  of  the  room. 

"  She  must  go  back  to  town, "  said  Helen, 
instantly.  "  Bess,  stoop  down  here.  Send 
her  back." 

"  Yes,  she  shall  go,"  said  Bess.  "  111  tell 
her  so.  I'm  going  to  do  a  lot  of  things. 
It  isn't  wise  for  you  and  Mrs.  Harding  to  be 
here  together."  How  they  had  come  to 
gether  she  did  not  know.  Hannah,  down 
stairs,  had  told  her  the  woman's  name. 
"  I  can  roll  your  bed  through  the  door 
way — " 

"No,  no!"     The  red  came  into  Helen's 

139 


JUDGMENT 

face.  Her  eyes  were  instantly  distraught. 
"Bess,  you  must  mind  me.  You  must 
listen.  If  she  is  here,  I  can  keep  watch  of 
her.  If  you  take  her  somewhere  else,  she 
will  see  Rosamond." 

"  I  won't  allow  it.  Rosamond  shall  be 
sent  home." 

Helen's  voice  sank  to  a  lower  whisper. 
"  She  would  follow.  She  would  get  up 
and  walk  on  those  burned  feet,  but  what 
she'd  follow.  Do  nothing,  nothing,  Bess, 
till  Kent  is  here." 

"  Helen,  we  must  have  a  nurse.  We 
must  have  a  doctor  down  from  town." 

Helen  moved  under  her  coverings.  She 
seemed  to  be  struggling  to  loose  herself. 
Fear  was  in  her  face  and  a  despairing 
strength. 

"I  cannot,  Bess,"  she  said.  "I  cannot. 
They  would  make  me  do  things.  They 
would  not  understand  when  I  said  she 
must  be  here.  Why,  you  trust  Doctor 
Susan!  We've  always  trusted  her.  And 
140 


JUDGMENT 

you  must  take  care  of  us,  you  and  Han 
nah,  just  till  Kent  comes  home." 

Fear  got  hold  of  Elizabeth  also,  but  only 
for  Helen  in  her  fevered  state. 

"  Be  quiet,  dear,"  she  begged  her.  "  Yes, 
till  Kent  comes  home." 

As  soon  as  possible,  she  slipped  down 
stairs  to  Rosamond.  The  girl  stood  by 
the  fire,  in  a  wan  seclusion,  thinking. 

"  I've  telegraphed  my  father,"  said  Eliz 
abeth. 

"  She  will  not  live,"  responded  Rosa 
mond,  her  lips  shuddering  upon  the  words. 

"  I  don't  know.  But  she  sha'n't  be  ter 
rified  to  death.  Rosamond,  we've  got  to 
face  the  music." 

Rosamond  made  no  answer.  Beside 
Elizabeth,  hot  with  determination,  red 
dened  from  the  air,  she  was  the  ghostly 
image  of  a  girl. 

"We  can't  refuse  to  face  things,"  said 
Elizabeth,  whipping  up  her  courage  in  a 
despairing  burst.  "Rosamond" —  and 
141 


JUDGMENT 

then  she  knew  she  could  not  tell  her,  and 
ended,  weakly  —  "she  wants  you  to  go 
back  to  town." 

"I  sha'n't  go  back."  Rosamond  had 
seated  herself  and  was  brooding  over  the 
fire.  "  I  shall  telegraph  mamma.  Do  you 
think  I  could  leave  Helen  Markham  ly 
ing  there  like  that?  No,  I  shall  not  go 
back." 

"  It  will  trouble  Helen." 

"Very  well,  then;  she  needn't  see  me. 
I'll  stay  down  here.  But  I  sha'n't  go 
back  to  town." 

"Rosamond,"  essayed  Elizabeth  again, 
"if  any  one  should  give  you  evidence- 
papers  —  that  were  damaging  to  Kent, 
what  would  you  do  with  them?" 

The  girl  turned  upon  her  in  a  rush  of 
feeling  that  brought  back  her  color. 

"Damaging  to  Kent?"  she  repeated. 
"To  Kent?" 

"Yes.     Proof  that  he  had  done  a  great 
wrong.     Long  ago,  Rosamond,  long  ago! 
142 


JUDGMENT 

If  the  papers  were  laid  in  your  hand,  what 
would  you  do  with  them?" 

The  girl  stood  looking  at  her,  pale  now, 
and  fiery-eyed.  Her  nostrils  trembled. 

"  I  don't  know,"  she  said.  "  One  of  two 
things.  I  should  throw  them  into  the  fire 
or  give  them  to  Kent.  Where  are  those 
papers?"  But  before  Elizabeth  could 
answer  she  went  on  in  a  proud  haste. 
"  Whatever  they  say,  they  prove  nothing — 
nothing  to  me,  Bess.  There  is  something 
wrong.  I  have  known  it  since  yesterday. 
Your  mother  knows  it.  But  I  refuse  it. 
If  he  wished  to  tell  me  himself,  I  should 
refuse  it.  That's  all.  Not  a  word  about 
Kent — not  a  word!" 

Elizabeth  walked  away  to  the  window 
and  looked  dimly  at  the  glittering  day. 
She  came  back  and  held  out  her  strong 
hand. 

"You  are  as  gallant  as  Helen  Mark- 
ham,"  she  muttered.  "I  can't  say  more 
than  that." 


JUDGMENT 

Rosamond  was  trembling,  but  she  gave 
her  hand. 

"Suppose  I  told  you  myself,  Rosa 
mond?" 

"  I  should  refuse  to  listen." 

The  hand-clasp  broke  because  they  were 
too  moved  to  keep  it. 

"As  to  what  you  call  evidence,"  said 
Rosamond,  "  if  it  can  be  used  against  him, 
he  and  I  must  face  that  together.  But 
don't  act  as  if  I  were  the  world  outside 
of  him.  Bess,  I  am — I  shall  be—  She 
paused  upon  the  words  and  could  not  form 
them;  but  Elizabeth  knew,  and  silently 
said  them  for  her  in  an  equal  reverence. 

Rosamond  would  not  go  home.  She 
telegraphed  for  news  of  her  mother,  and, 
having  had  a  reassuring  answer,  took  up 
her  post  outside  the  sick-room  door,  to  be 
sent  on  errands.  Helen  asked  for  her,  and, 
when  she  was  told  the  girl  would  not  come 
in,  was  comforted.  Yet  not  altogether ;  for 
now  she  was  losing  sway  over  her  sick 
144 


JUDGMENT 

mind,  and  she  saw  the  wraith  of  Rosa 
mond  at  her  bedside.  And  always  when 
the  girl  appeared  a  voice  seemed  to  salute 
her  —  Jane  Harding  calling,  grimly,  "I 
want  my  just  dues." 

At  the  end  of  the  third  day,  a  soft 
spring  night  with  a  moist  wind  blowing, 
Elizabeth  was  alone  down-stairs  by  the 
fire,  her  tired  body  gratefully  relaxed.  She 
was  not  needed  for  the  moment;  her 
watch  came  later.  There  was  a  sound  of 
wheels  and  then  a  step  she  knew.  The 
front  door  opened  and  a  man  walked  in 
upon  her:  John  Markham,  jaded,  worn  by 
haste,  after  his  journey  from  the  West. 
Elizabeth  rose,  and  the  unwilling  pride 
she  had  in  him  sprang  up,  and  with  quick 
blood  brought  some  confidence  to  life  in 
her.  Their  likeness  and  unlikeness  always 
strove  together  in  her  thought  of  him,  and, 
while  she  raged  against  him,  she  adored 
him.  He  was  of  the  heroic  mould,  his 
head  and  profile  of  the  statesman  type. 
145 


JUDGMENT 

His  eyes  were  deep,  lighted  by  a  glance 
that  probed  and  sometimes  slew.  One 
person  it  caressed.  His  mouth  was  daunt 
less  and  his  chin  obstinate.  As  he  stood 
before  her  he  seemed  to  pale  and  weaken. 
Dread  ran  over  him  in  a  shiver. 

"  How  is  it,  Bess?"  he  asked.  His  voice 
was  unfamiliar  to  her  with  its  touch  of 
tears. 

"She  is—" 

"Is  she  alive,  Bess?" 

"Yes,  father,  she  is  alive.     Sit  down." 

His  body  swayed  a  little  under  the  wave 
of  hope. 

"I  must  go  to  her."  He  was  pulling 
off  his  coat  mechanically,  and  she  helped 
him. 

"  You  can't  for  a  little. ' '  She  spoke  the 
more  gently  as  his  fear  became  apparent. 
"The  doctor  is  there.  She  and  Hannah 
are  attending  to  her  wounds." 

He  winced.  "It  got  into  the  papers," 
he  said,  in  a  voice  unlike  John  Markham's. 
146 


JUDGMENT 

"Only  it  said  you  were  both  burned.  I 
read  it  on  the  train." 

"I  know.  That  came  from  Hannah's 
telephoning  me  at  the  settlement.  A 
newspaper  woman  happened  to  be  there 
yesterday- 

He  interrupted  her.  "  Where  is  she 
hurt?  How  much?" 

"You  must  have  something  to  eat, 
father." 

"  No,  no!     How  much  is  she  burned?" 

"  A  good  deal  on  her  body,  her  arms,  her 
hands.  It  didn't  touch  her  face." 

"Her  hands!"  he  groaned. 

"  But  that  isn't  the  worst  of  it.  She  got 
a  chill  that  day.  .  Now  it  may  be  pneu 


monia." 


Long  as  Elizabeth  had  studied  her 
father  she  did  not  know  him.  Because 
he  dealt  hard  blows,  she  thought  he  had 
the  fibre  to  withstand  them.  Therefore, 
innocently,  she  became  his  judgment.  Old 
John  Markham  had  not  forborne  to  strike, 

147 


JUDGMENT 

and  even  his  daughter  need  not  spare 
him.  She  had  returned,  with  him,  to  the 
Hebraic  law. 

"  How  did  she  get  a  chill  ?"  he  asked,  with 
knitted  brows.  "  Why  is  she  down  here?" 

"  You  know  almost  as  much  as  I  do. 
Helen  wrote  you  about  the  woman  that 
threatened  Kent— 

His  frown  deepened.  This  was  the  ju 
dicial  look  he  kept  to  bend  upon  a  slip 
shod  world. 

"It  is  somehow  connected  with  that," 
Elizabeth  went  on.  "  Rosamond  March 
and  Jane  Harding  came  down  here  to 
gether.  Helen  followed  them,  and  since 
the  fire  she  won't  let  the  woman  leave  her 
sight.  She  is  afraid  to  trust  her.  The 
woman's  feet  are  burned;  but  that  makes 
no  difference.  She  doesn't  seem  to  be 
Jane  Harding  now,  to  Helen.  She  is  a 
spirit,  a  sort  of  devil.  There  they  lie  in 
the  east  chamber.  The  woman  never 
speaks.  She  is  terrifying  Helen  to  death. 
148 


JUDGMENT 

Yet  if  we  separate  them,  it  will  frighten 
her  the  more.  It  will  be  a  shock  she 
can't  recover  from." 

"I  must  go  up."  He  was  out  of  his 
chair,  and  Elizabeth  rose  and  put  a  hand 
upon  his  arm. 

"  You  can't  go  up.  Not  yet.  Wait  till 
the  doctor's  through." 

He  sat  down  again  and  watched  the 
stairs. 

"The  woman  must  be  moved  into  an 
other  room,"  said  he.  "  That's  the  first 
thing." 

"  Father,  you  can't  do  that.  It's  a 
foolish  situation,  but  it's  real."  She  was 
standing  over  him  as  strong  as  he,  instinct 
with  his  own  spirit.  "Father,  look  here! 
Do  you  think  I'm  a  womanish  creature 
given  to  theories,  hysterics?" 

He  glanced  at  her  absently.  His  mind 
was  all  with  Helen;  but  the  girl's  deter 
mination  compelled  him,  and  he  answered, 
"No." 

149 


JUDGMENT 

"Then  you'd  better  heed  me  when  I 
tell  you  to  deal  with  this  gently  or  you'll 
murder  Helen.  You'll  sacrifice  her,  as 
you  always  have  done." 

" Sacrifice  Helen!"  The  man  awoke, 
shocked  from  his  intrenched  security.  In 
his  silent  heart,  Helen,  he  knew,  was  the 
one  creature  who  had  from  him  continued 
worship,  unfailing  tenderness. 

"  Don't  you  know  you  have  sacrificed 
Helen  ?  She  has  been  the  bleeding  victim 
you've  kept  nailed  to  crosses  all  your 
life." 

Her  blood  was  hot  against  him.  In 
their  old  estrangement  she  had  been,  after 
the  first,  as  silent  to  him  as  he  had  been  to 
her,  their  warfare  incrusted  under  the  cold 
habit  of  like  natures ;  but  now,  in  her  cham 
pionship  of  the  woman  whom  she  loved, 
in  her  own  way,  as  broodingly  as  he  did, 
she  began  as  if  she  were  reading  from  the 
book  of  the  law.  This  was  the  law  as  she 
translated  it. 

150 


"'YOU    ARE    A    HARD    MAN,   JOHN    MARKHAM 


JUDGMENT 

"  I  can't  have  you  go  down  to  your  grave 
blind  and  deaf,  as  you've  been  living.  You 
are  a  hard  man.  They  told  you  so  last 
week  in  Cincinnati,  when  you  went  there 
to  meet  the  delegates  of  the  union.  One 
of  them  said  you  were  just,  and  that  old 
man,  the  one  that  lost  his  place  for,  disre 
spect,  what  did  he  say  ?  He  told  the  truth, 
because  you  forced  him  to  it.  'You  are 
a  hard  man,  John  Markham.'  He  dared 
to  say  it.  It  was  true.  You  are  a  hard 
man." 

John  Markham  sat  staring  at  the  fire. 
Silence  was  the  habit  of  his  life,  save  when 
the  moment  came  to  smite.  But,  thinking 
of  the  strike,  new  weariness  crept  upon 
his  face.  Those  weeks  of  warfare  in  the 
West  had  taken  something  out  of  him. 
The  things  men  had  said  to  him  had  scored 
him  deep.  He  had  bled  when  they  had 
taken  his  honesty  and  twisted  it,  he  felt, 
into  another  guise. 

"  You  have  been  hard  to  people  always, 


JUDGMENT 

in  the  world  and  here  at  home.  You  were 
like  iron  to  Kent.  No  wonder  he  went  to 
the  devil.  He'd  have  stayed  there  longer 
but  for  Helen.  That  sweet  soul  wouldn't 
let  him.  There  she  was  praying  for  him 
to  come  back,  and  there  were  you  letting 
him  crawl  back  by  himself.  You  were  in 
human  to  the  Landors.  To  me — we  won't 
talk  about  that.  And  every  time  Helen, 
with  that  divine  instinct  of  hers,  knew  you 
were  belaboring  backs,  and  she  crept  be 
tween  and  took  the  blows  herself.  Powers 
of  heaven  and  earth!  Sometimes  I  wake 
at  night  and  see  that  woman  bleeding 
from  the  hurts  you  deal  her  when  you 
think  you're  doing  God  service." 

John  Markham  had  not  moved.  His 
face  was  fixed  not  so  much  in  pain  as  in 
the  mask  of  a  man  who  has  it  to  conceal. 
Never  had  his  daughter  so  resembled  him. 
The  frenzy  of  tongues  had  come  upon  her, 
and  stirred  her  as  he  sometimes  was 
moved,  to  break  habitual  calm  and  hurl 
152 


JUDGMENT 

straight  talk  he  meant  to  back  by  deeds. 
Her  moment  had  come  and  she  was  using 
it,  yet  with  no  thought  of  personal  ven 
geance.  She  was  defending  Helen,  and, 
through  Helen,  the  man  who  loved  her — 
John  Markham  in  his  chosen  shell.  She 
dared  not  trust  him  through  these  doubt 
ful  issues,  unless  he  should  be  armed  with 
mercy. 

"  Somebody  has  got  to  snatch  you  back 
from  making  more  mistakes.  You  mean 
to  be  just,  and  you  are  cruel.  Look  at 
this  case  of  Kent.  You  refused  it.  '  He 
must  take  the  consequences  of  his  own 
acts.'  You  said  that.  Then  you  stood 
aside." 

"  It  was  simply  blackmail." 

"  It  was,  and  it  should  have  been  dealt 
with  by  a  man  who  knows  the  world — not 
by  Helen.  She  has  only  one  court  of  ap 
peal — the  will  of  God.  I  like  to  see  the 
will  of  God  work  through  a  court  of  law. 
Think  how  futile  the  whole  thing  has  been, 

153 


JUDGMENT 

a  plot  out  of  a  play.  A  woman  slanders 
Kent.  Helen  —  and  I,  too,  because  I'm 
nothing  but  a  woman — believe  the  slander. 
Life  isn't  melodrama.  Why  didn't  you 
grapple  with  the  thing,  and  turn  it  inside 
out,  and  worry  it  with  your  teeth,  and 
toss  it  into  the  gutter?  Where  was  your 
justice  then?'* 

"The  story  was  quite  true.  I  knew  it 
years  ago.  Kent  told  me." 

Her  young  radiance  faded  and  the  hope 
in  her  died  down. 

"  Why  did  he  tell  you?"  she  demanded. 

"  It  was  when  Helen  was  sick  and  want 
ed  him  to  come  home.  He  wouldn't  enter 
my  house  unless  I  knew."  There  was 
pride  in  his  voice  over  his  son's  de 
spairing  honesty.  Elizabeth  detected  it 
there,  and,  in  her  fierce  way,  loved  them 
both. 

"You  let  him  come!"  she  said,  rejoic 
ingly. 

"  I  looked  into  the  case  myself,"  he  said, 


JUDGMENT 

repudiating  praise.  "  I  found  he  was  sup 
porting  the  woman  in  her  last  illness.  He 
was  working  hard." 

"Was  that  when  he  drove  the  express 
wagon  and  let  us  think  he  was  insane  to 
do  it?" 

"Yes." 

"  And  now,  after  you  had  watched  him 
through  that  fight,  you  stand  aside  to  let 
Rosamond — the  girl  he  loves — get  the  rest 
of  his  punishment!  Well,  Helen  wouldn't 
stand  aside.  She  can't.  If  anything  is 
wounded,  there  she  is  with  salves  and 
bandages.  She  goes  round  doing  her  di 
vine,  futile  things  when  you  might  prevent 
the  hurts  she  tries  to  heal.  And  then  she 
pays — she  pays,  John  Markham." 

Unconsciously  she  used  the  name  she 
saw  in  the  newspapers  and  heard  from  the 
mouths  of  men  when  they  held  him  up  to 
praise  and  blame.  "And  after  all,"  she 
said — "after  all  your  deifying  of  justice, 
you  know  nothing  whatever  about  it.  You 

155 


JUDGMENT 

think  it  is  a  chariot  rolling  on  and  on ;  it's 
a  kind  of  pendulum  that  swings  back 
and  forth  and  hits  and  hurts.  It  has 
done  that  lots  of  times;  but  every  time 
it  strikes  Helen,  because  she  stands  in  the 
breach." 

His  eyes  were  on  the  stairs,  watching 
for  the  signal;  but  he  listened.  She  got 
up  and  walked  the  floor. 

"  I  don't  know  why  I  feel  such  cham 
pionship  of  Helen.  Yes,  I  do.  Because 
she  won't  let  anybody  but  the  powers  of 
heaven  champion  her,  and  they  don't  seem 
to  do  it.  Justice!  Yes,  you've  got  it.  I 
never  saw  anything  like  the  exquisite  clev 
erness  of  it.  A  delicate,  spiritual  judgment 
you  wouldn't  have  seen,  you  wouldn't  have 
felt.  Those  revenges  have  been  coming  for 
years,  but  you  never  knew  them.  It  takes 
a  crude,  big  force  like  this  to  assault  you. 
Fire,  wounds,  pain;  here  they  are,  and 
they've  attacked  Helen." 

John  Markham  sat  absolutely  still.     He 

156 


JUDGMENT 

scarcely  breathed ;  to  Elizabeth,  caught  up 
in  the  chariot  of  revolt,  he  hardly  seemed 
to  hear;  and  so  in  her  rage  she  gave  her 
coursers  rein,  speaking  to  herself  rather 
than  to  him.  He  roused  himself  and  star 
tled  her. 

"Bess,"  he  said,  "you  talk  about  Kent 
and  the  Landors.  Your  name  came  in 
there.  When  have  I  injured  you?"  For 
John  Markham  to  own  that  he  had  wrong 
ed  any  one  was  strange.  But  nothing 
seemed  unusual  to  the  girl  in  this  moment 
of  sorrow's  exaltation,  with  Helen  prone 
up- stairs,  slain  in  a  futile  battle.  She  an 
swered,  simply: 

"It  doesn't  matter." 

"  I  don't  know,  Bess.     I  don't  know." 

She  flashed  at  him:  "You  must  have 
known.  Because  I  didn't  talk  about  it, 
do  you  think  I  didn't  see?  It  isn't  my 
way  to  talk,  except  once  in  a  thousand 
years.  This  is  one  of  the  times.  I've 
been  pretty  still  till  now." 
157 


JUDGMENT 

There  was  the  closing  of  a  door  above, 
and  again  he  watched  the  stairs.  No  one 
came. 

"What  have  I  done?"  he  asked,  in  a 
direct  simplicity. 

"You  did  nothing  to  me  personally. 
The  blow  hit  me  because  it  fell  on  people 
that  were  mine.  You  ruined  the  Landors. 
You  hurt  me  through  Graham  Landor,  as 
Helen  would  be  hurt  if  a  man  ruined  you." 

He  made  a  gesture  of  the  hand. 

"  Yes,  I  know,"  she  said,  bitterly.  "  You 
mean  they  deserved  to  be  ruined.  They 
did — Graham's  father  did.  But  even  old 
Tom  Landor  could  have  been  treated  like 
a  human  being.  You  did  it  like  a  god — a 
god  demanding  sacrifice.  You  smote  them 
hip  and  thigh,  and  when  they  went  down 
you  turned  your  attention  to  some  other 
part  of  the  battle-field  and  looked  for  more 
to  smite.  It  isn't  your  acts  I  complain  of, 
father;  it's  your  spirit.  You  think  you 
wield  the  sword  of  God.  Perhaps  you  do, 
158 


JUDGMENT 

but  you're  a  wasteful  swordsman.     You 
cut  off  more  than  one  head  at  a  blow." 

"Graham  Landor!"  he  repeated.  The 
words  had  a  wondering  sound.  He  had 
weighed  the  young  man,  and  found  him 
by  tradition  and  heredity  unsuited  to  the 
market  -  place.  Here  in  his  house  was 
Graham  Landor,  quite  another  person:  a 
human  thing  for  whom  another  creature 
had  been  agonizing. 

"Why  do  you  act  as  if  you  didn't 
know?"  she  cried,  beyond  herself.  "You 
knew  it  at  the  time.  We  had  some  talks 
together.  Do  you  remember  how  Helen 
used  to  look  when  you  and  I  came  away 
from  our  duels  in  the  library,  two  Mark- 
hams  pitted  in  open  field,  one  as  bad  as 
the  other?  I  do.  I  remember  it." 

"I  knew" — his  words  labored,  but  he 
went  on  evenly — "  I  knew  you  blamed  me 
about  Landor.  But  that  was  at  first.  I 
thought  you  accepted  my  estimate  of  the 
case.  I  thought  what  you  felt  was  nat- 
159 


JUDGMENT 

ural — quite  natural;  it  was  the  revolt  of 
youth." 

"  Do  you  think  I  should  ever  have  given 
up  Graham  Landor  if  he  hadn't  given  up 
me?  You  struck  at  his  pride,  and  he  for 
sook  us  all.  Why,  you  thought  Graham 
Landor  wasn't  fit  to  enter  your  house!  I 
have  sometimes  thought  he  didn't  consid 
er  a  woman  of  your  blood  fit  to  marry. 
If  he  had — if  he  had  come  to  me—  She 
stopped,  and  her  face  flamed  in  the  com 
pleted  answer.  "Why  did  you  think  I 
left  your  house,  father?"  she  added,  in  a 
cumulative  passion .  ' '  Why  ? ' ' 

11  You  were  very  wilful,"  he  began,  as  if 
it  were  a  simple  statement  he  had  long  ago 
accepted. 

"  I  was  wilful;  but  I  left  it  for  two  rea 
sons.  One  was  that  we  were  killing  Helen, 
you  and  I,  with  that  warfare  between  us. 
The  other  was  that  if  Graham  Landor 
wasn't  fit  to  eat  your  bread,  I  wouldn't 
eat  it.  That  awful  partisanship  of  women 
1 60 


JUDGMENT 

had  come  up  in  me — the  kind  that  makes 
Helen  feel  she  can  twist  the  laws  of  the 
universe  and  weave  them  into  a  coat  of 
mail  for  you.  There  are  some  things  you 
don't  know,  John  Markham,  about  the 
way  women  care  for  men.  Learn  them. 
They'll  make  you  humble." 

He  was  humble  then,  not  before  her, 
but  in  the  face  of  unknown  things.  He 
got  up  from  his  chair  and  stood,  bent  a 
little,  an  older  man. 

"  Bess, ' '  he  said.  Then  he  stopped.  All 
the  sickness  of  his  heart  rose  in  the  cry: 
"  I  must  go  up  there."  In  his  trouble  the 
universe  seemed  to  have  forsaken  him. 
Some  uncomprehended  law  he  had  inno 
cently  awakened  had  spread  a  pall  be 
tween  him  and  the  soul  in  whom  he  had 
his  refuge.  He  was  an  inarticulate  creat 
ure.  Not  even  to  himself  could  he  translate 
the  bond  between  him  and  the  woman  up 
stairs  ;  but  she  was  the  intimate  substance 
of  him,  the  sanctuary  where  he  withdrew, 
»  161 


JUDGMENT 

the  one  still  spot  in  the  fluent  scheme  of 
things.  She  seemed  to  be  ebbing  away 
from  him,  drawn  by  forces  over  which  he 
had  no  power,  and  this  young  voice  was 
showing  him  how  he  had  ignorantly  evoked 
the  forces  where  they  slept.  The  room 
was  dark  before  him.  Familiar  outlines 
swam  in  it.  The  world  he  had  always 
dominated  refused  his  tyranny.  Eliza 
beth,  recalled  to  the  sight  of  him,  returned 
quickly  to  her  normal  self. 

11  You  can  go  up,"  she  said.  'The  doc 
tor  is  in  the  back  hall  talking  with  Han 
nah.  I  hear  them.  Go  up,  father.  Or 
shall  I  go  and  prepare  Helen?" 

He  shook  his  head.  Helen  had  no  need 
to  be  prepared.  They  both  knew  that. 
He  was  immediate  to  her  needs,  like  air 
and  sun.  Elizabeth  watched  him  walking 
heavily  from  the  room,  and  it  came  upon 
her  that,  if  Helen  died,  he  would  be  broken 
by  his  grief.  The  greater  powers  of  life 
would  be  upon  him  at  a  bound.  The  spir- 
162 


JUDGMENT 

itual  universe  of  which  he  took  no  account, 
save  in  the  abstract  honesties  that  govern 
life,  would  crush  him.  It  would  be  a  col 
lision  of  two  worlds,  and  John  Markham, 
the  speck  clinging  to  habitable  fact,  would 
be  ground  to  atoms.  A  woman's  answer 
ing  pity  woke  in  her. 

"Father,"  she  cried,  "  I'm  sorry!" 

He  looked  back  at  her  and  smiled  a  little, 
to  reassure  her.  His  face  grew  sweet,  as  it 
did  for  Helen  under  the  softening  of  great 
love. 

"  Never  mind,  Bess,"  he  said,  in  the  tone 
she  fancied  she  had  heard  him  use  when 
she  was  little.  "Nevermind." 

Then  he  began  to  climb  the  stairs. 

Elizabeth  went  back  and  stood  there 
by  the  fire.  She  was  a  woman  of  sturdy 
strength,  but  she  was  trembling.  Re 
morse  had  hold  of  her,  and  at  one  leap 
her  mind  reversed  its  warfare  to  crush  her 
in  an  equal  blame.  She  smiled  with  a 
humorous  scorn  of  herself  and  her  own 
163 


JUDGMENT 

action.  This  was  life's  irony,  as  she  had 
mixed  the  cup.  Here  was  old  John  Mark- 
ham  wounded  in  the  moment  of  his  grief 
because  he  had  tried  unjustly  to  serve 
judgment;  and  it  was  John  Markham's 
daughter  who  had  smitten  him,  from  the 
very  rage  for  justice  he  had  bequeathed 
her.  Only  in  her  it  was  different:  justice 
mingled  with  some  other  quality  of  equal 
potency.  This  was  the  hot  impulse  which 
had  caused  her  own  mother  to  storm  against 
him  and  urge  him,  unwittingly,  to  a  more 
rigorous  will.  It  came  upon  her  with  a 
sudden  awe  over  the  uncomprehended 
ways  of  life  that  Helen  had  been,  after  all, 
the  only  one  to  understand  him  wrholly. 
She  had  believed  against  belief.  She  had 
stood  aside,  not  questioning  him,  but  set 
ting  the  power  of  her  spirit  against  the 
hurtling  of  his  deeds. 

Elizabeth,  pacing  .back  and  forth,  call 
ed  upon  "her  own  soul  to  come  forth  for 
judgment.     In  the  process  of  enlightening 
164 


JUDGMENT 

him  she  had  illuminated  herself.  She  had 
judged,  justly  perhaps,  but  too  passion 
ately;  like  him,  she  had  acted  upon  the 
fruits  of  her  own  judgment,  and,  like  him, 
she  had  not  remembered  mercy.  The  one 
desire  she  had  in  mind,  that  of  preparing 
him  to  see  Helen  without  destroying  the 
delicate  balance  of  life -forces  by  some 
crude  denial — that,  possibly,  she  had  ac 
complished.  But  what  she  had  indubita 
bly  done  was  to  inflict  on  him  a  lifelong 
hurt.  If  Helen  were  to  die,  he  would  bear 
a  double  agony  in  the  memory  of  words 
that  could  not  be  unsaid. 

Tears  sprang  hotly  to  her  eyes.  Wom 
an's  pity  rose  in  her,  bidding  her  spare 
and  not  to  smite.  She  walked  the  floor 
swiftly  in  new  longing  to  wipe  away  pain, 
however  justly  suffered,  to  bring  sleep  to 
all  eyes  and  softness  to  the  pillowed  head. 
Again  there  was  a  step  on  the  veranda 
and  some  one  at  the  door.  She  brushed 
her  tears  away  and  went  hurriedly  to  fore- 

165 


JUDGMENT 

stall  the  knocker's  clang.  Opening  the 
door,  sweet  spring  air  blew  in  on  her,  as 
if  in  prophecy.  And  at  the  instant  all 
omens  were  fulfilled:  there  stood  Graham 
Landor. 


VI 


NEITHER  of  them  spoke  in  that  first 
instant,  and  Elizabeth,  without  a  wel 
coming  gesture,  stood  with  her  hand  upon 
the  door. 

"  Well,  Bess,"  said  Landor,  finally, "  don't 
you  think  I  might  come  in?" 

Recalled  to  ordinary  courtesies,  she 
stepped  aside,  and  he  followed  her  into  the 
hall.  There  he  stood,  hat  in  hand,  re 
garding  her.  After  the  silence  of  their 
separation,  no  speech  was  ready.  Gra 
ham  began : 

"How  do  I  look,  Bess?" 

"You  look — just  the  same."  Her  low 
voice  trembled  and  made  the  words  less 
cool.  If  her  heart  had  been  allowed  to 
answer,  it  would  have  told  him  he  looked 


JUDGMENT 

older,  more  worn,  but  dearer — a  thousand 
times  the  man  he  promised  to  be,  even  in 
those  beloved  days. 

"No,  no!  I  mean  now,  after  this  trip 
down  from  town.  Do  I  strike  you  as  a 
chap  that's  been  through  something?" 

"You  look  tired." 

"  I  ought  to  look  blasted  to  the  bone. 
For  I've  had  a  shock.  I  saw  Mrs.  Mark- 
ham  had  been  in  an  accident  here,  and  you, 
Bess,  too.  Then  I  seized  my  hat  and  ran 
for  the  train,  and  you  meet  me  at  the  door. 
Do  you  call  that  a  shock,  Bess  Markham? 
Do  you?" 

11  Helen  is  hurt.     She  is  very  ill—" 

Her  voice  failed  her  because  she  was  at 
once  aware  that  there  were  tears  in  his 
eyes,  and  that  he  was  laboring  under  the 
feeling  he  seemed  to  flout.  She  under 
stood  suddenly  that  not  even  Helen  Mark- 
ham's  hurt  had  called  him  down  here.  It 
was  she.  Landor  was  pulling  off  his  coat 
with  an  absorbed  quietude,  at  the  same 
1 68 


JUDGMENT 

time  getting  his  emotions  under  sway.  He 
rubbed  his  hands  and  held  them  to  the 
blaze,  though  the  night  was  a  warm  one 
and  the  hall  fire  had  been  lighted  chiefly 
for  its  company. 

"  Come  into  the  library,"  said  Elizabeth. 
"Father  is  up-stairs." 

"You  sent  for  him?  What  about  the 
strike?" 

"I  haven't  asked  him." 

There  was  a  knock  at  the  outer  door, 
and  Landor  opened  it.  It  was  a  mes 
senger  from  the  village  with  a  telegram 
for  John  Markham. 

"They've  begun  to  come,"  said  Eliza 
beth,  laying  it  on  the  table  while  Landor 
signed  for  her.  "  They  follow  father  round 
in  flocks.  Come  into  the  library." 

It  was  at  once  quite  natural  to  be  sit 
ting  in  a  room  with  him,  talking  in  the 
habit  of  civilized  intercourse ;  yet  for  years 
her  heart  had  cried  for  him,  like  one  of  the 
delights  of  life  withheld  for  reasons. 
169 


JUDGMENT 

"I  want  to  know  about  Mrs.  Mark- 
ham—  "  he  began. 

She  had  not  the  heart  to  tell  that  story, 
and  gave  him  the  bare  truth  of  it,  touch 
ing  lightly  on  details.  One  fact  only  mat 
tered — Helen  was  very  ill. 

"  We  must  send  for  a  nurse,"  she  added. 

"Why  didn't  you  do  it  at  once?" 

"  I  can't  tell  you  now.     Helen  had  fan 


cies." 


Then  they  were  silent,  and  suddenly 
Landor  laughed  a  little. 

"What  is  it?"  asked  Elizabeth. 

"I'm  thinking  how  queer  it  is,  how  the 
barriers  of  life  break  down.  I  should  have 
said  I  wouldn't  enter  your  father's  house, 
nor  eat  at  his  table;  and  I've  invaded  two 
of  his  houses  within  a  fortnight,  and  one 
of  those  times  I  broke  bread  with  his  wife. 
And  now  I'm  going  to  make  love  to  his 
daughter." 

"Graham!"     She   started  up,  and  the 
familiar  name  came  sharply. 
170 


"THEN  THEY  WERE  SILENT" 


JUDGMENT 

Landor  shook  his  head  musingly  and 
would  not  look  at  her.  At  the  moment 
he  could  not.  He  had  endured  too  much 
on  the  journey  down.  Elizabeth  Mark- 
ham,  he  thought,  had  been  hurt,  and  he 
should  reach  her  in  the  midst  of  tragic 
suffering;  but  seeing  her  strong  and  fair, 
in  untouched  sanity,  he  found  the  reac 
tion  hard  to  meet. 

"You  see,  Bess,"  he  said,  reflectively, 
"I've  been  a  fool.  I  cut  your  father  be 
cause  he  blackened  mine.  I  suppose  I've 
been  suffering  a  fever  of  shame  all  these 
years  at  having  my  rascally  blood  ana 
lyzed  and  named.  So  I  wouldn't  come 
near  you.  And  the  minute  a  lying  news 
paper  tells  me  Bess  Markham's  hurt,  I 
see  that  nothing  under  the  sun  but  Bess 
Markham  has  much  bigness  to  it.  Look 
at  me,  Bess — look  at  me!" 

She  did  look  at  him,  paling  under  the 
challenge,  her  spirit  meeting  his.  Gra 
ham  Landor  here  in  the  flesh,  laying  bonds 
171 


JUDGMENT 

upon  her,  was  a  different  matter  from  the 
man  haunting  her  woman's  dreams.  The 
wholesome  strength  in  her  defied  and  beck 
oned  him.  She  forgot  Helen,  as  he,  in  his 
absorption,  had  ignored  her. 

"You  see,"  said  Landor,  his  thought 
laboring  within  him,  "we've  got  to  make 
it  go  somehow." 

"What?" 

"  I  am  frightfully  poor,  dear.  I  make 
money,  but  I  have  to  pay  it  all  away. 
That  you  wouldn't  mind.  If  I  could  coax 
you  to  come  with  me,  you'd  live  meagrely 
for  the  sake  of  me,  wouldn't  you,  Bess?" 

She  did  not  answer,  but,  smiling  ten 
derly,  she  smoothed  her  gown  where  it 
fell  in  stiff  folds  suited  to  its  serviceable 
weave.  She  was  bringing  testimony  from 
her  own  plain  living  at  the  settlement 
to  show  him  luxury  had  long  been  over 
for  her. 

"  I  suppose  I've  been  eaten  up  by  pride," 
said  Landor,  wonderingly.  "  It's  the  re- 
172 


JUDGMENT 

action  from  my  father's  downfall.  And 
I've  lost  years  of  you.  That's  a  judgment 
on  me  for  my  pride.  It's  a  mercy  you 
didn't  go  and  marry  some  other  fellow 
that  prized  you  more  than  trumpery  name 
and  reputation.  You'll  have  to  carry  my 
name,  Bess.  Your  father  won't  approve. 
But  you've  got  to,  haven't  you?" 

Involuntarily  she  rose,  and  he  stood 
also.  They  faced  each  other  in  a  chal 
lenge  more  significant  than  soft  acknowl 
edgments.  Landor  had  kept  his  purpose 
behind  its  mask  of  light  interpretation; 
but  now  it  shook  him,  and  he  looked  his 
love. 

"Bess,"  said  he,  "you  do  like  me. 
Don't  you  like  me?" 

!'Yes,"  she  answered,  in  a  low  tone,  "I 
like  you." 

"  I  couldn't  help  believing  it.     I  knew 

that  years  ago.      If  I'd  kept  myself  in 

your    mind,  maybe    by   now   you  would 

have  loved  me.     But  give  me  a  chance, 

173 


JUDGMENT 

dear.     Let    me    take    back    tracks    and 
try  again." 

Quick  avowals  were  at  her  lips,  ready 
to  meet  him  with  an  equal  honesty;  but 
she  heard  John  Markham  coming  down 
the  stairs. 

"My  father!"  she  said,  and  Landor 
straightened  and  drew  his  brows  together. 
It  was  difficult  to  modify  his  habit  of  re 
garding  himself  as  a  man  Markham  might 
endorse  on  business  grounds,  but  not  good 
enough  to  court  his  daughter.  But  as  he 
saw  at  once,  with  a  surprise  beguiling  him 
to  sympathetic  interest,  John  Markham 
was  altered.  The  haggard  face  drooped 
heavily,  and  he  walked  like  a  man  uncer 
tain  of  his  way.  Elizabeth  was  at  his  side 
in  quick  solicitude. 

"Have  you  seen  her,  father?" 

He  shook  his  head.  Then  the  words 
interpreted  his  dull  look. 

"  I  have  been  sitting  by  her.  She  does 
not  know  me." 

174 


JUDGMENT 

''You  have  a  telegram,"  she  said,  and 
brought  it  to  him. 

He  opened  it  indifferently,  and  then  laid 
it  by.  He  had  apparently  not  noticed 
Landor,  and  the  other  man  stood  wait 
ing,  in  a  grave  concern.  He  was  shar 
ing,  through  memory  and  anticipation,  the 
trouble  of  the  house.  His  own  claims 
were  in  abeyance.  Now,  Markham  be 
came  aware  of  him.  He  looked  at  him 
for  an  instant,  through  his  mists  of 
trouble,  and  then  as  keenly  at  Elizabeth. 
He  took  a  step  towards  Landor,  and 
held  out  his  hand.  Graham  started,  as 
he  gave  his  own.  His  forehead  crim 
soned.  In  some  uncomprehended  way 
it  seemed  as  if  John  Markham  had  ac 
cepted  him. 

"  If  another  message  comes,"  said  Mark- 
ham  to  Elizabeth,  "  keep  the  boy.  There 
will  be  an  answer."  He  went  out  of  the 
room,  and  they  heard  his  hopeless  step 
climbing  the  stairs. 

175 


JUDGMENT 

Outside  Helen's  door  Hannah  met  him, 
in  a  pitiful  encouragement. 

"  She'll  know  ye  now.  You  go  right  in. 
She  seems  to  be  herself." 

He  stole  softly  in,  but  Helen  heard  him. 
Her  eyes  were  startling  in  the  pallor  of  her 
face.  They  held  a  rapture  beyond  any 
even  he  had  wakened  there. 

"  Oh,"  she  breathed,  "  you  came  home!" 

He  bent  to  kiss  her,  and  then  it  swept 
upon  him,  in  a  melting  pity,  that  she  could 
not  move  to  meet  him.  She  interpreted 
his  thought. 

"  My  hands  are  burned,  dear,"  she  whis 
pered.  "Shall  you  care?" 

Tears  were  on  his  cheeks. 

"  I  care  because  you  have  been  hurt." 

"  But  not  because  they  won't  be  pret 
ty  any  more!  I  knew  it.  Besides — I  am 
not  going  to  live.  Dear,  don't  look  like 
that.  I've  got  to  pay  the  price." 

In  her  light-headed  grasp  at  reason,  he 
seemed  to  be  himself,  and  yet  also  a  creat- 


JUDGMENT 

ure  of  her  dreams.  Tangible  enough  to 
comfort  her,  he  was  really  spirit,  a  being 
to  whom,  in  the  acute  mental  life  she  felt, 
she  might  speak  without  disguise.  It  was 
even  unnecessary  to  spare  him  hurt,  as  if 
they  were  still  subject  to  the  incidents  of 
flesh.  In  her  stress  of  mind,  Jane  Har 
ding  dwindled  and  was  lost.  Terror  lest 
the  silent  creature  at  her  side  should  hear 
her  merged  into  the  necessity  to  speak 
and  let  the  outcome  justify  itself. 

Meantime,  Jane  Harding  lay  there  as  she 
had  through  interminable  hours.  She  had 
accepted  food  from  Hannah  because  she 
must;  but  she  had  not  spoken. 

"I  have  had  dreams,"  said  Helen. 
"They  were  about  life  and  death.  I  see 
I  must  die.  There  has  been  so  much 
wrong  done,  dear!  But  if  one  of  us  dies, 
it  will  make  atonement.  Now,  listen.  If 
I  die,  you  will  do  anything  I  ask." 

He  bent  his  head  upon  her  pillow,  and 
his  cheek  wet  hers. 

177 


JUDGMENT 

"Live,  Helen!"  he  besought  her — "live! 
I  will  do  everything  if  you  will  live." 

"There  are  a  great  many  things.  You 
must  listen.  There  is  that  woman — Jane 
Harding." 

In  his  absorption  he  had  taken  the 
woman  for  granted,  like  a  crude  fact  in 
the  room's  furnishing;  but  Helen  turned 
her  head  slightly,  and  his  eyes  followed 
hers.  The  head  upon  the  other  pillow 
stirred.  Jane  Harding,  too,  was  listening. 

"I  understand  her  now,"  said  Helen. 
"  She  has  done  wrong,  but  it  is  because  life 
has  starved  her  out.  She  wants  life,  dear. 
You  must  send  her  to  Brazil." 

This  was  nothing  but  delirium  to  him, 
and  he  soothed  her  with  a  gentle  acqui* 
escence;  but  Jane  Harding's  head  moved 
upon  its  pillow. 

"I  have  talked  to  Graham  Landor," 
said  Helen.  "He  will  tell  you.  But  you 
must  be  the  one,  dear.  You  must  do  it 
all.  Our  debts  to  human  creatures,  they 


JUDGMENT 

must  all  be  paid;  and  paid  in  kindness, 
dear,  in  love  —  nobody  must  call  to  us 
again  without  our  answering." 

"You  must  not  talk,"  he  said,  in  the 
commonplace  of  the  sick-room.  But  she 
seemed  neither  wilful  nor  excited  —  only 
most  urgently  resolved. 

"I  must  talk,"  she  answered.  "There 
may  not  be  much  time.  Graham  Landor, 
too,  dear.  He  is  in  love  with  Bess.  They 
must  marry.  They  might  be  as  happy  as 
we  have  been.  You  must  stand  by  them. 
Rosamond—  She  turned  again,  in  brief 
uneasiness,  her  glance  upon  the  other 
bed,  and  for  the  moment  her  voice  low 
ered.  "  I  am  afraid  I  can't  save  Rosa 
mond.  I  don't  know  how.  Only  protect 
her  from  Jane  Harding  until  Kent  comes 
home.  Then  she  must  meet  it,  with  him 
to  help  her.  But  stand  by  them,  dear. 
Promise  you'll  stand  by." 

He  promised,  his  lips  upon  her  ban 
daged  wrist.  Her  trouble  seemed  at  once 
179 


JUDGMENT 

to  clear  away.  She  smiled  at  him,  offer 
ing  him  the  worship  of  her  eyes. 

"Now  I  can  be  glad  you've  come,"  she 
said.  "I've  learned  so  many  things  out 
of  all  this.  One  is  about  pain.  It  is  one 
of  the  ways  of  life.  We  must  bless  it,  and 
not  shrink  from  it.  But  we  must  save 
other  people.  We  must  make  the  mis 
takes  that  come  from  love — not  that  other 
kind."  She  stopped  to  smile  at  him  with 
a  radiance  beyond  any  he  had  ever  seen  in 
her.  "This  is  my  will,"  she  said,  with  a 
little  laugh.  "I  am  leaving  love  to  all 
the  world.  You  will  administer  it  for  me. 
You  will  divide  my  goods;  that  was  all  I 
had — love.  But  it's  enough." 

Then  she  wandered  off  into  happy  fan 
tasy,  and  Hannah  touched  him  on  the 
sleeve. 

"It's  a  telegram,"  she  whispered,  when 
he  had  followed  her  outside.  "The  boy 
is  waiting." 

Elizabeth,  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs, 
1 80 


JUDGMENT 

stood  holding  his  message,  and  he  read 
it  as  he  had  the  other  one,  and  crumpled 
it  in  his  hand.  He  halted  there  a  mo 
ment,  beating  his  fingers  on  the  balus 
trade,  and  presently,  recalling  himself 
with  a  breath,  he  walked  into  the  libra 
ry,  where  Landor  waited.  John  Markham 
went  up  to  him  as  if  he,  being  a  man,  stood 
for  the  world's  tribunal.  In  that  last  hour 
Markham  had  lived  out  his  middle  life 
and  stumbled  upon  age.  He  looked  as  if 
all  the  wholesome  usages  of  being  were 
alien  to  him,  even  food  and  sleep. 

"They  are  wiring  their  conditions,'*  he 
said,  abruptly. 

"The  strikers?" 

"Yes.  They  have  withdrawn  two 
points  out  of  three.  If  I  hold  on,  they 
will  withdraw  them  all." 

Elizabeth  had  come  near,  her  eyes 
lighted,  her  cheeks  aflame. 

"The  conditions  are  just,  father,"  she 
said.     "You  know  it." 
181 


JUDGMENT 

"They  are  all  just,"  said  John  Mark- 
ham,    stolidly.     "  But    they    can't    force 


me." 


''It  isn't  they  that  force  you—  '  she 
began,  but  his  face  cut  short  the  words. 
He  had  lifted  it  in  terrible  questioning  to 
the  unseen  powers  above.  The  hand  that 
had  created,  and  now  held  him,  was  om 
nipotent.  He  was  an  atom;  he  must  find 
his  place. 

"No,"  he  said,  "they  are  not  forcing 
me.  It  is  something  else." 

He  took  a  pencil  from  his  pocket  and 
wrote  a  message.  "Call  the  boy,"  he 
bade  Elizabeth,  and  gave  it  to  her.  He 
turned  to  Landor.  "  The  strike  is  off,"  he 
said.  "  Wire  it  for  your  morning's  issue." 

The  spirit  of  the  market  -  place  came 
upon  Landor,  and  he  set  down  his  mes 
sage.  When  the  boy  had  gone,  Markham, 
brooding  by  the  fire,  looked  indifferently 
into  the  two  moved  young  faces.  He 
smiled,  yet  without  hope. 
182 


JUDGMENT 

"It  was  too  late,  wasn't  it?"  he  said  to 
Elizabeth. 

"What  is  too  late,  father?"  she  asked 
him,  gently. 

He  did  not  answer,  but  his  thought  had 
been  that  he  was  behindhand  with  his  sac 
rifice.  Now  at  last  the  Hebrew  God  was 
angry,  and  do  what  he  might  he  could  not 
buy  off  Helen. 

Landor  was  speaking  to  him. 

"  I  intended  to  cross  to  Footbridge  and 
take  the  midnight  train ;  but  perhaps  you'll 
let  me  stay  and  sit  about  till  morning. 
You  may  need  things  done." 

Elizabeth's  face  brightened,  and  John 
Markham  answered,  neutrally,  "  It's  all 
one  to  me.  Bess  can  decide." 

Elizabeth  went  up  -  stairs  to  begin  her 
watch,  and  the  two  men  were  left  alone. 
They  sat  on  either  side  of  the  cold  hearth, 
and  Landor,  with  a  thought  of  Markham's 
comfort,  lighted  a  match  and  laid  it  to 
the  wood. 


JUDGMENT 

"  May  I?"  he  asked,  and  Markham  nod 
ded. 

Then  they  stretched  their  feet  out  to  the 
blaze  and  mused,  each  on  his  own  road. 

"Things  come  too  late,"  Markham  said, 
abruptly. 

"  Not  everything,"  answered  the  other 
man,  in  sudden  thought  of  Bess. 

"They  come  too  late."  Markham 
roused  himself.  He  wished  to  make  his 
sacrifice  in  haste,  even  though  it  could  not 
avail.  "There  is  something  about  this 
woman,"  he  added — "sending  her  to  Bra 
zil." 

"  Yes,  Mrs.  Markham  spoke  to  me.  She 
was  very  keen  about  it ;  she  almost  infect 
ed  me.  But  it's  a  good  deal  to  risk." 

"I  risk  it,"  said  Markham.  "Give  her 
money.  Let  her  see  the  world.  Pension 
her  for  life.  If  that  is  what  God  wants, 
let  God  have  it."  He  spoke  bitterly,  and 
Landor  looked  at  him  in  wonder. 

There  was  a  sound  of  draperies  at  the 
184 


JUDGMENT 

door,  and  they  both  came  to  their  feet 
at  sight  of  Rosamond.  She  stood  there, 
wistful,  sad,  and  with  the  rosiness  of 
sleep  upon  her.  She  had  lain  down  early 
to  get  her  rest,  and  was  up  now,  to  take 
her  place  in  service.  Her  warm,  white 
dress  clung  about  her,  and  the  wide  sleeves 
fell  to  her  knees.  With  her  loosened  hair 
and  grieving  look,  she  was  a  picture  of 
sweet  childhood,  not  yet  come  to  ripening, 
but  with  sorrow  thrust  upon  it  unpre 
pared.  After  the  first  word  of  surprise, 
she  came  forward  and  shook  hands  with 
them.  She  looked  at  Markham  question- 
ingly.  He  nodded. 

!<Yes,"  said  he.  "I  have  seen  her. 
There  is  no  change." 

He  paused,  and  Landor,  hearing  Eliza 
beth  come  down  the  stairs,  went  out  into 
the  hall  to  meet  her.  There  they  talked 
a  moment,  and  sat  down  together  while 
she  gave  him  urgent  errands  to  be  done 
in  town. 

185 


JUDGMENT 

As  soon  as  he  had  left  the  room,  Rosa 
mond  turned  eagerly  to  Markham. 

"This  is  my  first  happy  minute,"  she 
said.  "It  is  because  you've  come.  She 
won't  die  now.  She  can't;  you  will  hold 
her  back." 

He  smiled  sadly  at  her. 

"How  can  I  hold  her  back?"  he  asked. 
"It  is  too  late,  Rosamond.  I  came  too 
late." 

Her  face,  with  its  young  beauty,  ar 
rested  him  because  it  seemed  like  Helen's. 
There  was  no  resemblance,  yet  the  same 
spirit  was  there  —  the  rapturous  strain 
ing  after  something  ineffable,  unseen.  Un 
imaginative  as  he  was,  it  became  appar 
ent  to  him  that  the  transforming  veil  was 
what  these  women  were  accustomed  to 
call  love — the  consecration  to  something 
not  themselves. 

"I  know  she  can  be  saved,"  she  told 
him,   swiftly;   "because  if  I  were  sick- 
even  like  that — and  Kent  came,  he  could 
186 


JUDGMENT 

save  me.  And  it  isn't  that  she  is  burned 
so  badly,  Mr.  Markham — I  saw  her  hands 
when  Hannah  dressed  them.  They're  not 
going  to  be  disfigured,  as  you  think — ah, 
don't,  don't  let  me  hurt  you  so!" 

He  turned  away  from  her,  to  rest  his 
forehead  on  the  mantel,  and  stood  there, 
breathing  heavily. 

"It's  not  even  that  she's  so  ill,"  she 
went  on.  '  That  could  be  met.  She  has 
lots  of  strength.  It's  that  something  ter 
rifies  her.  You'll  find  out  about  it.  You'll 
set  her  mind  at  rest." 

Immediately  some  new  understanding 
awoke  and  took  possession  of  him;  it 
pointed  out  the  simplest  way  to  go.  He 
raised  himself  and  took  her  hands  in  his. 

"Rosamond,"  he  said,  "I  know  what 
terrifies  her.  Shall  I  tell  you?" 

"Yes,  Mr.  Markham,  yes." 

"It  is  about  Kent." 

Pride  flamed  in  her  face,  but  he  would 
not  heed  it. 


JUDGMENT 

"You  must  be  a  woman,  Rosamond," 
he  said.  "  Listen  to  me  exactly  as  you 
would  to  Kent.  I  am  going  to  do  what 
he  left  undone.  Will  you  listen?" 

"Yes,"  she  said,  coldly,  "I  will  listen." 
"  There  has  been  a  great  wrong  in  Kent's 
life.     He  should  have  told  you— 

"He  tried  to  tell  me.     I  forbade  him." 
"  That  was  a  mistake.     It  proves  so. ' ' 
'Then  let  him  tell  me  when  he  comes." 
"  I   shall  tell   you  now.     There  was  a 
wrong  done — there  was  a  woman- 
She  looked  him  in  the  eyes;  her  own 
glance  quivered,  but  it  did  not  falter. 

"Was  Kent  cruel  to  her?"  she  asked, 
steadily.  "  Did  he  desert  her?" 

"  He  stayed  by  her  always — while  she 
needed  him." 

She  pulled  her  hand  from  his  and  turned 
away  from  him,  to  take  long,  hurrying 
steps  across  the  room.  In  a  moment  she 
was  back  again;  her  face  was  wild  with 
tears. 

188 


JUDGMENT 

"I  must  know,"  she  said  — "  I  must 
know  it  all.  Because  I  must  do  what 
there  is  to  do.  I  must  give  up — every 
thing."  Her  wounded  soul  had  turned 
from  Kent  himself;  it  was  not  possible,  in 
that  sharp  moment,  to  think  of  his  life  and 
hers  together  in  an  equal  flow.  But  all 
her  spiritual  allegiance  made  her  demand 
the  right  of  expiation.  Markham  spoke 
simply  out  of  the  sorrow  that  was  upon 
him — for  her,  for  Helen,  and  for  Kent, 
who  bruised  the  thing  he  would  have 
cherished. 

"Rosamond,  the  woman  died." 

She  sat  down  in  a  low  chair  and  leaned 
forward,  her  arms  in  their  long  drapery 
upon  her  knees.  Her  hair  fell  about  her. 
She  was  an  image  of  immortal  grief. 

He  waited  in  the  hopeless  certainty  of 
losing  her,  through  this  new  coil  of  trouble 
that  had  befallen  his  house.  She  rose  and 
came  to  him,  her  wet  face  quivering  under 
a  piteous  smile. 

189 


JUDGMENT 

"Is  that  what  troubles  Helen?"  she 
asked.  "  Was  she  afraid  I  should  find  out  ? 
— afraid  I  should  blame  him,  judge  him? 
Why,  111  tell  her!  '  Neither  death  nor 
life' — that  was  what  she  said  the  other 
night — 'nor  principalities  nor  powers'— 
Mr.  Markham  "  —she  spoke  with  the  ma 
ture  dignity  newly  born  in  her  —  "Kent 
is  just  the  same  to  me  as"  —she  paused 
and  her  voice  broke—  •"  as  you  are  to  Hel 
en  Markham.  All  except  the  years.  And 
those  are  coming."  She  went  softly,  in  a 
swift  rush,  up  the  stairs  to  Helen. 

But  no  one  could  disturb  Helen,  even 
for  her  mind's  assuaging.  The  doctor 
came  back  and  stayed  till  morning,  and 
she  and  Hannah  watched  together.  John 
Markham  sat  outside  the  door  and  waited 
with  bowed  head,  and  Landor,  below- 
stairs,  brooded  by  the  fire  and  felt  once 
more  at  home  because  he  was  under  the 
same  roof  with  Bess.  At  dawn  the  doctor 
went,  and  Hannah  laid  a  hand  on  John 
190 


JUDGMENT 

Markham's  shoulder,  where  he  sat  on 
guard.  He  stood  up,  ready. 

"  Has  it  come?"  he  asked. 

"Go  in  an'  set  a  spell,"  said  Hannah. 
Her  tired  face  wore  the  mother-look.  She 
felt  as  if  she  had  been  carrying  Helen  in 
her  arms  all  night,  and  every  part  of  her 
ached  from  that  upholding.  "You'll  do 
more  than  any  doctor." 

Helen's  eyes  were  on  him  as  he  entered. 
They  were  sane  and  sweet. 

"How  good  it  is!"  she  said. 

"What,  dearest?" 

"To  have  you  here.  I  wish  I  didn't 
have  to  die." 

"Why  do  you  say  you  have  to  die?" 

"To  make  things  straight.  No,  I  don't 
want  to  die.  I'd  rather  live,  if  things 
could  be  made  straight." 

Jane  Harding  had  risen  in  her  bed.    She 

sat  there  in  the  unlovely  disorder  left  her 

by  the  night.     Her  face  was  yellow,  and 

her  straight,  black  hair,  confined  in  braids 

191 


JUDGMENT 

pathetically  small,  intensified  her  meagre- 
ness.  John  Markham,  for  the  first  time, 
looked  at  her.  She  recalled  him,  with  a 
shock,  to  the  tragic  meaning  of  her  pres 
ence  there.  Yet  no  one  had  seen  Jane 
Harding  as  he  saw  her  then;  her  face  had 
aged  and  softened  under  pain  and  the 
suspense  lived  through  in  lonely  hours. 

"  You  let  me  speak,"  said  she. 

Helen  turned  her  head,  and  Markham 
held  up  his  hand  to  keep  the  woman  silent. 
But  Helen  answered,  gently: 

"Yes,  Mrs.  Harding.  This  is  my  hus 
band.  You  remember." 

Jane  Harding  had  thrust  her  hand  under 
the  pillow,  and  now  she  brought  it  forth, 
the  letters  in  her  knotted  fingers. 

"Here!"  She  held  them  out  to  Mark- 
ham,  and  he  rose  and  took  them.  '  You 
can  give  'em  back  to  Kent,"  she  said. 
"You  can  put  'em  in  the  fire.  That's  all 
there  is  about  it." 

Rosamond  appeared  softly  at  the  door. 
192 


JUDGMENT 

Now  she  was  at  Helen's  bedside  in  her 
white  dress  and  with  the  night's  knowl 
edge  on  her  altered  face.  John  Markham, 
with  a  glance  at  her,  walked  out  of  the 
room,  the  letters  in  his  hand,  and  Rosa 
mond  took  the  chair  by  Helen's  bed.  The 
two  looked  at  each  other  in  the  growing 
light.  Sad  understanding  passed  between 
them,  in  a  wordless  message. 

"You  know!"  said  Helen,  wonderingly. 

"  Yes,  Mrs.  Markham.  There  is  nothing 
to  trouble  you — or  any  of  us.  Now  you 
must  sleep.  I  want  you  to  be  well — when 
Kent  comes  home." 

Jane  Harding  had  put  her  bandaged  feet 
out  of  bed  and  set  them  on  the  floor.  Her 
face  changed  sharply,  but  she  walked.  At 
the  bedside  she  paused  and  laid  her  hand 
on  Helen's  coverlet. 

"Don't  you  fret,"  said  she.  "There's 
nothing  for  you  to  fret  about." 

She  moved  on  out  of  the  room,  and, 
when  she  wavered  at  the  door,  Helen  called 
13  193 


JUDGMENT 

to  her.  Rosamond  lifted  a  dissuading  fin 
ger. 

"No,"  she  said,  with  the  new  authori 
ty  born  in  her  through  knowledge.  "  No. 
Your  husband  is  there — he  and  Graham 
Landor.  Let  them  see  to  it." 

Helen  shut  her  eyes ;  and  meantime  Jane 
Harding  went  to  town  with  Graham  Lan 
dor,  and  they  talked  Brazil  together. 

And  Helen  lived. 

The  law  of  all  loving  is  that  lovers  shall 
turn  their  backs  upon  the  garden  which 
lies  "eastward  in  Eden,"  and  set  their 
faces  towards  the  west.  In  their  journey 
ing  they  will  come  upon  springs  and  dried 
water-courses,  upon  bloom  and  withering, 
upon  ripeness  and  fallow  fields.  But  if 
they  keep  the  memory  of  Eden,  the  sun  of 
noon  and  the  later  light  will  fall  sweetly 
on  their  faces,  and  they  will  discover  that 
the  journey  lies  through  the  land  of  Heart's 
Content.  And  after  sunset,  no  one  knows. 
194 


JUDGMENT 

There,  it  may  be,  lies  the  land  of  Heart's 
Delight;  for  as  the  evening  and  the 
morning  were  the  first  day,  so  the  last 
evening  may  be  followed  shortly  by  the 
morning. 


THE    END 


BY  ONOTO  WATANNA 


A  JAPANESE  NIGHTINGALE.  A  love  story 
of  Japan.  Full-page  Drawings  in  Color  and 
unique  Decorative  Color  Borders  on  every  page, 
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$i  50.  

AS  SEEN  BY  ME.     With  Frontispiece. 

THE  INSTINCT  OF  STEP-FATHERHOOD.    Sto 
ries. 

FROM  A  GIRL'S  POINT  OF  VIEW. 

The  author  is  so  good-humored,  quaint,  and  clever  that  she 
has  not  left  a  dull  page  in  her  book. — Saturday  Evening 
Gazette,  Boston. 

A  LITTLE  SISTER  TO  THE  WILDERNESS.    A 
Novel.     New  Edition. 

Written  from  the  heart  and  with  rare  sympathy.  .  .  . 
The  writer  has  a  natural  and  fluent  style,  and  her  dialect  has 
the  douhle  excellence  of  being  novel  and  scanty.  The  scenes 
are  picturesque  and  diversified. — Churchman,  N.  Y 

THE    UNDER    SIDE    OF    THINGS.    A    Novel. 
With  a  Portrait  of  the  Author. 

This  is  a  tenderly  beautiful  story.  .  .  .  This  book  is 
Miss  Bell's  best  effort,  and  most  in  the  line  of  what  we  hope 
to  see  her  proceed  in,  dainty  and  keen  and  bright,  and  always 
full  of  the  fine  warmth  and  tenderness  of  splendid  woman 
hood. — Interior,  Chicago. 

THE  LOVE  AFFAIRS  OF  AN  OLD  MAID. 

So  much  sense,  sentiment,  and  humor  are  not  often  united 
in  a  single  volume. — Observer,  N.  Y. 

l6mo,  Ornamented  Cloth,  Uncut  Edges  and  Gilt  Tops,  $i  25 
per  volume. 

Postage  Extra  on  Net  Books. 

HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  PUBLISHERS 

NEW   YORK  AND  LONDON 

^jJT Any  of  the  above  works  will  be  sent  by  mail,  postage  pre 
paid,  to  any  part  of  the  United  States,  Canada,  or  Mexico,  on 
receipt  of  the  price. 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 

AN     INITIAL    FINE      OF     25     CENTS 

WILL   BE   ASSESSED    FOR    FAILURE  RETURN 


OVERDUE. 


FED     3  1933 


ill-  20m-6,'32 


• 

. 


9267 


OF  CAUFORNIA  LIBRARY 


